
Book— v^, / ; 



The Memories 



OF 



Fifty Years 



CONTAINING 

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF DISTINGUISHED 

AMERICANS, AND ANECDOTES OF 

REMARKABLE MEN; 



INTERSPERSED WITH SCENES AND INCIDI<:NTS OCCURRING 

DURING A LONG LIFE OF OBSERVATION CHIEFLY 

SPENT IN THE SOUTHWEST. 



BY 

W. H. SPARKS. 




/ 
PHILADELPHIA^ H> 
CLAXTON, REMSEN & H AFFELFINGER. 
MACON GA.: J. W. BURKE & CO. 

1870. 



lit. 



r-' 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

CLAxfON, REMSEN cS: HAFFELFINGER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States 

in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

STKREOTYI'KO BY J. FAGAN A SON. TRINTKO BY MOORE BROS. 



1 



TO 

MY BROTHER AND NEPHEW, 
THE HONORABLE OVID GARTEN SPARKS, 

AND 

COLONEL THOMAS HARDEMAN, 

OF MACON, GEORGIA. 



E\n§ IJoIunu i§ Utduaki 



BY THEIR AGED AND AFFECTIONATE RELATIVE, TRUSTING 
THEY WILL ESTEEM IT, WHEN HE SHALL HAVE 
PASSED TO ETERNITY, AS SOME EVI- 
DENCE OF THE AFFECTION 
BORNE THEM BY 



The Author. 



PREFACE. 



IN the same week, and within three days of the same date, 
I received from three Judges of the Supreme Court, of 
three States, the request that I would record my remem- 
brances of the men and things I had known for fifty years. 
The gentlemen making this request were Joseph Henry 
Lumpkin, of Georgia; William L. Sharkey, of Mississippi, 
and James G. Taliaferro, of Louisiana. 

From Judge Sharkey the request was verbal ; from the other 
two it came in long and, to me, cherished letters. All three 
have been my intimate friends — Lumpkin from boyhood; the 
others for nearly fifty years. Judge Lumpkin has finished his 
work in time, and gone to his reward. Judges Sharkey and 
Taliaferro yet live, both now over seventy years of age. The 
former has retired from the busy cares of office, honored, 
trusted, and beloved ; the latter still occupies a seat upon the 
Bench of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. 

These men have all sustained unreproached reputations, and 
retained through their long lives the full confidence of the 
people of their respective States. I did not feel at liberty to 
resist their appeal : I had resided in all three of the States ; 
had known long and intimately their people ; had been exten- 
sively acquainted with ver)^ many of the most prominent men 
of the nation — and in the following pages is my compliance. 

I have trusted only to my memory, and to a journal kept for 
many years, when a younger man than I am to-day — hasten- 
ing to the completion of my seventieth year. Doubtless, I 
have made many mistakes of minor importance ; but few, I 
trust, as to matters of fact. Of one thing I am sure: nothing 
has been wilfully written which can wound the feelings of any. 

Many things herein contained may not be of general 
interest; but none which will not find interested readers; for 
while some of the individuals mentioned may not be known to 
common fame, the incidents in connection with them deserve 
to be remembered by thousands who knew them. 

I * V 



VI PREFACE. 

These Memories are put down without system, or order, as 
they have presented themselves, and have been related in a 
manner which I have attempted to make entertaining and 
instructive, without being prolix or tedious. They will be 
chiefly interesting to the people of the South ; though much 
may, and, I hope, will be read by those of the North. Some 
of my happiest days have been passed in the North : at Cam- 
bridge some of my sons have been educated, and some of my 
dearest friends have been Northern men. Despite the strife 
which has gone far toward making us in heart a divided 
people, I have a grateful memory of many whose homes and 
graves were and are in New England. 

Would that this strife had never been ! But it has come, 
and I cannot forego a parent's natural feelings when mourning 
the loss of sons slain in the conflict, or the bitterness arising 
therefrom toward those who slew them. Yet, as I forgive, I 
hope to be forgiven. 

There are but few now left who began the journey of life 
with me. Those of this number who still sojourn in our 
native land will find much in these pages familiar to their 
remembrance, and some things, the reading of which may 
revive incidents and persons long forgotten. In the West, in 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, there are many — 
the descendants of those who participated in events transpir- 
ing fifty years ago — who have listened at the parental hearth 
to their recital. To these I send this volume greeting; and 
if they find something herein to amuse and call up remem- 
brances of the past, I shall feel gratified. 

To the many friends I have in the Southwest, and especially 
in Louisiana and Mississippi, where I have sojourned well- 
nigh fifty years, and many of whom have so often urged upon 
me the writing of these Memories, I commit the book, and ask 
of them, and of all into whose hands it may fall, a lenient 
criticism, a kindly recollection, and a generous thought of 
our past intercourse. It is an inexorable fate that separates 
us, and I feel it is forever. This sad thought is alleviated, 
however, by the consciousness that the few remaining sands 
of life are falling at the home of my birth ; and that when the 
end comes, as very soon it must, I shall be placed to sleep 
amid my kindred in the land of my nativity. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS. 

Middle Georgia — Colonel David Love — His Widow — Governor Dunmore 

— Colonel Tarleton — Bill Cunningham — Colonel Fannin — My Grand- 
mother's Bible — Solomon's Maxim Applied — Robertus Love — The 
Indian Warrior — Dragon Canoe — A Buxom Lass — General Gates — 
Marion — M ason L. Wee ms — Washington — " Billy Crafford " . . 13 

CHAPTER II. 

PIONEER LIFE. 

Settlement of Middle Georgia — Prowling Indians — Scouts and their Dogs 

— Classes of Settlers — Prominence of Virginians — Causes of Distinction — 
Clearing — Log-Roiling — Frolics — Teachers Cummings and Duffy — The 
Schoolmaster's Nose — Flogging — Emigration to Alabama . . • ' 9 

CHAPTER III. 

THE GEORGIA COMPANY. 

Yazoo Purchase — Governor Matthews — James Jackson — Burning of the 
Yazoo Act — Development of Free Government — Constitutional Conven- 
tion — Slavery: Its Introduction and Effects 27 

CHAPTER IV. 

POLITICAL DISPUTATIONS. 

Baldwin — A Yankee's Political Stability — The Yazoo Question — Party 
Feuds and Fights — Deaf and Dumb Ministers — Clay — Jackson — 
Buchanan — Calhoun — Cotton and Free Trade — The Clay and Randolph 
Duel 38 

CHAPTER V. 

GEORGIA'S NOBLE SONS. 

A Minister of a Day — Purity of Administration — Then and Now — Widow 
Timberlake — Van Buren's Letter — Armbrister and Arbuthnot — Old 
Hickory Settles a Difficulty — A Cause of the Late War — Honored Dead . 52 



Vm CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 
POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS. 

A Frugal People — Laws and Religion — Father Pierce — Thomas W. Cobb 

— Requisites of a Political Candidate — A Farmer-Lawyer —j Southern 
Humorists 6i 

CHAPTER VII. 

WITS AND FIRE-EATERS. 

Judge Dooly — Lawyers and Blacksmiths — John Forsyth — How Juries were 
Drawn — Gum-Tree vs. Wooden-Leg — Preacher-Politicians — Colonel 
Cumming — George McDuffie ........ 70 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

Governor Matthews — Indians — Topography of Middle Georgia — A New 
Country and its Settlers — Beaux and Belles — Early Training — Jesuit~ 
Teachers — A Mother's Influence — The Jews — Homely Sports — The 
Cotton Gin — Camp-Meetings ......... 92 

CHAPTER IX. 
PEDAGOGUES AND DEMAGOGUES. 
Education — Colleges — School-Days — William and Mary — A Substitute — 
Boarding Around — Rough Diamonds — Caste — George M. Troup — A 
Scotch Indian — Alexander McGilvery — The Mcintosh Family — Button 
Gwinnett — General Taylor — Matthew Talbot — Jesse Mercer — An 
Exciting Election 117 

CHAPTER X. 

INDIAN TREATIES AND DIFFICULTIES. 

The Creeks — John Quincy Adams — Hopothlayohola — Indian Oratory — 
Sulphur Springs — Treaties Made and Broken — An Independent Governor 

— Colonels John S. Mcintosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, and Duncan 
Clinch — General Gaines — Christianizing the Indians — Cotton Mather — 
Expedient and Principle — The Puritanical Snake 130 

CHAPTER XI. 
POLITICAL CHANGES. 
Aspirants for Congress — A New Organization — Two Parties — A Protective 
Tariff — United States Bank — The American System — Internal Improve- 
ments — A Galaxy of Stars — A Spartan Mother's Advice — Negro-Dealer 

— Quarter-Races — Cock-Pitting — Military Blunders on Both Sides — 



CONTENTS. IX 

Abner Green's Dudghter — Andrew Jackson — Gwinn — Poinclexter — Ad 
Interim — Generals by Nature as Civil Rulers 142 

CHAPTER XII. 
GOSSIP. 
Unrequited Love — Popping the Question — Practical Joking — Satan Let 
Loose— Rhea, but not Rhea — Teachings of Nature — H, S. Smith . .157 

CHAPTER XIII. 
INFLUENCE OF CHILDHOOD. 

First Impressions — Fortune — Mirabeau B. Lamar — Dr. Alonzo Church — 

— Julius Cxsar — L. Q. C. Lamar — Texan Independence — Colquitt 

— Lumpkin — What a Great Man Can Do in One Day — Charles J. Jenkins 166 

CHAPTER XIV. 

A REVOLUTIONARY VETERAN. 

Tapping Reeve — James Gould — Colonel Benjamin Talmadge — The Execu- 
tion of Major Andr^ — Character of Washington — A Breach of Discipline 

— Burr and Hamilton — Margaret Moncrief — Cowles Meade. . . 184 

CHAPTER XV. 
CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT. 

Governor Wolcott — Toleration — Mr. Monroe — Private Life of Washington 

— Thomas Jefferson — The Object and Science of Government — Court 
Etiquette — Nature the Teacher and Guide in all Things .... 202 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PARTY PRINCIPLES. 

Origin of Parties — Federal and Republican Peculiarities — Jefferson's Princi- 
ples and Religion — Democracy — Virginia and Massachusetts Parlies — 
War with France — Sedition Law — Lyman Beecher — The Almighty Dol- 
lar — " Hail Columbia " and " Yankee Doodle " 214 

CHAPTER XVII. 

CONGRESS IN ITS BRIGHTEST DAYS. 

Missouri Compromise — John Randolph's Juba — Mr. Macon — Holmes and 
Crawford — Mr. Clay's Influence — James Barbour — Philip P. Barbour — 
Mr. Pinckney — Mr. Beecher, of Ohio — " Cuckoo, Cuckoo ! " — National 
Roads — William Lowndes — William Roscoe — Duke of Argyle — Louis 
McLean — Whig and Democratic Parties ...... 225 



268 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

FRENCH AND SPANISH TERRITORY. 
Settlers on the Tombigbee and Mississippi Rivers — La Salle — Natchez — 
Family Apportionment — The Hill Country — Hospitality — Benefit of 
African Slavery — Capacity of the Negro— His Future . . • -243 

CHAPTER XIX. 
THE NATCHEZ TRADITIONS. 
Natchez — Mizezibbee ; or, The Parent of Many Waters — Indian Mounds — 
The Child of the Sun — Treatment of the Females — Poetic Marriages 

— Unchaste Maids and Pure Wives — Walking Archives — The Profane 
Fire — Alahoplechia—Oyelape — The Chief with a Beard . . .253 

CHAPTER XX. 
EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
Chicago — Crying Indians — Chickasaws — De Soto— Feast of the Great 
Sun — Cane-Knives — Love-stricken Indian Maiden— Rape of the Natchez 

— Man's Will— Subjugation of the Waters— The Black Man's Mission — 
, Its Decade 

CHAPTER XXI. 
TWO STRANGE BEINGS. 
Romance of Western Life —Met by Chance — Parting on the Levee — Meet- 
ing at the Sick-Bed — Convalescent — Love-Making — " Home, Sweet 
Home " — Theological Discussion — Uncle Tony — Wild, yet Gentle — 
An Odd Family — The Adventurer Speculates 277 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ROMANCE CONTINUED. 

Father Confessor— Open Confession — The Unread Will — Old Tony's Nar- 
rative—Squirrel Shooting — The Farewell Unsaid— Brothers-in-Law — 
Farewell Indeed 298 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
WHEN SUCCESSFUL, RIGHT; WHEN NOT, WRONG. 
Territorial Mississippi — Wilkinson — Adams — Jefferson — Warren — Clai- 
borne — Union of the Factions — Colonel Wood — Chew — David Hunt 
— Joseph Dunbar — Society of Western Mississippi — Pop Visits of a Week 
to Tea — The Horse " Tom " and his Rider — Our Grandfathers' Days — 
An Emigrant's Outfit — My Share — George Poindexter — A Sudden 



CONTENTS. XI 

Opening of a Court of Justice — The Caldwell and Gwinn Duel — Jackson's 
Opposition to the Governor of Mississippi . • " . . . . 321 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR. 

John A. Quitman — Robert J. Walker — Robert H. Adams — From a Cooper- 
Shop to the United States Senate — Bank Monopoly — Natchez Fencibles 

— Scott in Mexico — Thomas Hall — Sargent S. Prentiss — Vicksburg — 
Single-speech Hamilton — God-inspired Oratory — Drunk by Absorption 

— Killing a Tailor — Defence of Wilkinson 343 

CHAPTER XXV. 

A FINANCIAL CRASH. 

A Wonderful Memory — A Nation Without Debt — Crushing the National 
Bank — Rise of State Banks — Inflated Currency — Grand Flare-up — 
Take Care of Yourself — Commencing Anew — Failing to Reach an Obtuse 
Heart — King Alcohol does his Work — Prentiss and Foote — Love Me, 
Love my Dog — A Noble Spirit Overcome — Charity Covereth a Multitude 
of Sins 361 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS. 

Sugar vs. Cotton — Acadia — A Specimen of Mississippi French Life — Bayou 
La Fourche — The Great Flood — Theological Arbitration — A Rustic 
Ball — Old-Fashioned Weddings — Creoles and Quadroons — The Planter 

— Negro Servants — Gauls and Anglo-Normans — Antagonism of Races . 372 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

ABOLITION OF LICENSED GAMBLING. 

Baton Rouge — Florida Parishes — Dissatisfaction — Where there's a Will, 
there 's a Way — Storming a Fort on Horseback — Annexation at the Point 
of the Poker — .Raphignac and Larry Moore — Fighting the " Tiger " — 
Carrying a Practical Joke too Far — A Silver Tea-Set .... 390 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THREE GREAT JUDGES. 

A Speech in Two Languages — Long Sessions — Matthews, Martin, and Por- 
ter — A Singular Will — A Scion of '98 — Five Hundred Dollars for a 
Little Fun with the Dogs — Cancelling a Note 403 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

AMERICANIZING LOUISIANA. 

Powers of Louisiana Courts — Governor William C. C. Claiborne — Cruel 
O'Reilly — Lefrenier and Noyan Executed — A Dutch Justice —Edward 
Livingston — A Caricature of General Jackson — Stephen Mazereau — A 
Speech in Three Languages — John R. Grymes — SetUing a Ca. Sa.— Bat- 
ture Property— A Hundred Thousand Dollar Fee 423 

CHAPTER XXX. 
DIVISION OF NEW ORLEANS INTO MUNICIPALITIES. 
American Hotel — Introduction of Steamboats — Faubourg St. Mary -Canal 
Street — St. Charles Hotel— Samuel J. Peters — James H. Caldwell — 
Fathers of the Municipality — Bernard Marigny — An Ass — A. B. Roman 440 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

BLOWING UP THE LIONESS. 
Dodor Clapp- Views and Opinions -Universal Destiny - Alexander Bar- 
row— E D. White — Cross-Breed, Irish Renegade, and Acadian— A 
Heroic Woman- The Ginseng Trade - I-M 'H D-d-die F-f-first . .451 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF THE RED MAN. 

Line Creek Fifty Years Ago - Hopothlayohola - Mcintosh - Undying 

Hatred — A Big Pow-wow — Massacre of the Mclntoshes — Nehemathla 

- Onchees -The Last of the Race - A Brave Warrior - A White Man's 

Friendship— The Death-Song — Tuskega; or, Jim's Boy . . -465 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
FUN, FACT, AND FANCY. 
Eugenius Neibitt - Washington Poe-Yelverton P. King -- Preparing to 
Receive the Court -Walton Tavern, in Lexington — Billy Spnnger, of 
Sparta -Freeman Walker -An Augusta Lawyer - A Georgia Major — 
_ Major Walker's Bed - Uncle Ned - Discharging a Hog on His Own 
Recognizance -Morning Admonition and Evening Counsel - A Mother s 
Request — Invocation — Conclusion 479 



THE MEMORIES 

OF 

FIFTY YEARS, 



CHAPTER I. 

REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS. 

Middle Georgia — Colonel David Love — His Widow — Governor Dun- 
more — Colonel Tarleton — Bill Cunningham — Colonel Fannon — 
My Grandmother's Bible — Solomon's Maxim Applied — Robertus 
Love — The Indian Warrior — Dragon Canoe — A Buxom Lass — 
General Gates — Marion — Mason L. Weems — Washington — "Billy 
Crafford." 

MY earliest memories are connected with the first settlement of 
Middle Georgia, where I was born. . My grandparents on 
the mother's side, were natives of North Carolina; and, I believe, 
of Anson county. My grandfather, Colonel David Love, was an 
active partisan officer in the service of the Continental Congress. 
He died before I was born ; but my grandmother lived until I was 
seventeen years of age. As her oldest grandchild, I spent much of 
my time, in early boyhood, at her home near the head of Shoulder- 
bone Creek in the county of Green. She was a little, fussy, Irish 
woman, a Presbyterian in religion, and a very strict observer of all 
the duties imposed upon her sect, especially in keeping holy the 
Sabbath day. All her children were grown up, married, and, in the 
language of the time, "gone away." She was in truth a lone woman, 
busying herself in household and farming affairs. With a few negroes, 

2 13 



14 THE MEMORIES OF 

and a miserably poor piece of land, she struggled in her widowhood 
with fortune, and contrived, with North Carolina frugality and in- 
dustry, not only to make a decent living, but to lay up something 
for a rainy day, as she phrases it. In her visits to her fields and 
garden, I ran by her side and listened to stories of Tory atrocities 
and Whig suffering in North Carolina during the Revolution. The 
infamous Governor Dunmore, the cruel Colonel Tarleton, and the 
murderous and thieving Bill Cunningham and Colonel Fannin, 
both Tories, and the latter natives to the soil, were presented graph- 
ically to me in their most hateful forms. In truth, before I had 
attained my seventh year, I was familiar with the history of the par- 
tisan warfare waged between Whig and Tory in North and South 
Carolina, from 1776 to 1782, from this good but garrulous old lady. 
I am not so certain she was good : she had a temper of her own, 
and a will and a way of her own ; and was good-natured only when 
permitted this way without opposition, or cross. Perhaps I retain 
a more vivid memory of these peculiar traits than of any others 
characterizing her. She permitted no contradiction, and exacted 
implicit obedience, and this was well understood by everything about 
her. She was strict and exacting, and had learned from Solomon 
that to "spare the rod was to spoil the child." She read the Bible 
only ; and it was the only book in the house. This Bible is still in 
existence ; it was brought by my grandfather from Europe, and is 
r\ow covered with the skin of a fish which he harpooned on his return 
voyage, appropriating the skin to this purpose in 1750. She had use 
for no other book, not even for an almanac, for at any moment she 
could tell the day of the month, the phase of the moon and the day 
General Washington captured Cornwallis ; as also the day on which 
Washington died. Her reverence for the memory of my grandfather 
was idolatry. His cane hung with his hat just where he had habitu- 
ally placed them during his latter days. His saddle and great sea-chest 
were preserved with equal care, and remained undisturbed from 1798 
to 181 7, precisely as he left them. I ventured to remove the cane 
upon one occasion ; and, with a little negro or two, was merrily riding 
it around in the great lumber-room of the house, where scarcely any 
cme ever went, when she came in and caught me. The pear-tree 
sprouts were immediately put into requisition, and the whole party 
most mercilessly thrashed. From that day forward the old buck- 



FIFTY YEARS. I5 

horn-headed cane was an awful reminder of my sufferings. She was 
careful not to injure the clothing of her victims, and made her appeals 
to the unshielded cuticle, and with a heavy hand for a small woman. 

It was an ill-fashioned but powerfully-built house, and remains a 
monument to this day of sound timber and faithful work, braving 
time and the storm for eighty-two years. It was the first framed 
house built in the county, and I am sure, upon the poorest spot of 
land within fifty miles of where it stands. Here was born my uncle, 
Robertus Love, who was the first white child born in the State west 
of the Ogeechee River. 

Colonel Love, my grandfather, was eccentric in many of his 
opinions, and was a Puritan in religious faith. Oliver Cromwell was 
his model of a statesman, and Praise-God Barebones his type of a 
Christian. While he was a boy his father married a second time, 
and, as is very frequently the case, there was no harmony between 
the step-mother and step-son. Their jarrings soon ripened into 
open war. To avoid expulsion from the paternal roof he "bundled 
and went." Nor did he rest until, in the heart of the Cherokee 
nation of Indians, he fouyd a home with Dragon Canoe, then the 
principal warrior of the nation, who resided in a valley amid the 
mountains, and which is now Habersham County. With this chief, 
who at the time was young, he remained some four years, pursuing the 
chase for pleasure and profit. Thus accumulating a large quantity 
of peltries, he carried them on pack-horses to Charleston, and 
thence went with them to Europe. After disposing of his furs, which 
proved profitable, he wandered on foot about Europe for some 
eighteen months, and then, returning to London, he embarked for 
America. 

During all this time he had not heard from his family. Arriving 
at Charleston he made his way back to the neighborhood of his 
birth. He was ferried across the Pedee river by a buxom lass, who 
captured his heart. Finding his father dead, he gathered up the 
little patrimony left him in his father's will, should he ever return to 
claim it : he then returned to the neighborhood of his sweetheart of 
the ferry ; and, being a fine-looking man of six feet three inches, 
with great blue eyes, round and liquid ; and, Othello-like, telling 
well the story of his adventures, he very soon beguiled the maiden's 
heart, and they were made one. About this time came off the 



I 6 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

battles of Concord and Lexington, inaugurating the Revolution. It 
was not, however, until after the declaration of independence, that 
he threw aside the plough and shouldered the musket for American 
independence. 

That portion of North Carolina in which he resided had been 
mainly peopled by emigrants from Scotland. The war progressing 
into the South, found nearly all of these faithful in their allegiance to 
Britain. The population of English descent, in the main, espoused 
the cause of the colonies. With his neighbors Love was a favorite ; 
he was very fleet in a foot-race, had remarkable strength ; but, above 
all, was sagacious and strong of will. Such qualities, always appre- 
ciated by a rude people, at that particular juncture brought their 
possessor prominently forward, and he was chosen captain of a com- 
pany composed almost to a man of his personal friends and acquain- 
tances. Uniting himself with the regiment of Colonel Lynch, just 
then organized, and which was ordered to join the North Carolina 
line, they marched at once to join General Gates, then commanding 
in the South. Under the command of this unfortunate general he 
remained until after the battle of Camden, Here Gates experienced 
a most disastrous defeat, and the whole country was surrendered to 
the British forces. 

South Carolina and North Carolina, especially their southern por- 
tions, were entirely overrun by the enemy, who armed the Tories and 
turned them loose to ravage the country. Gates's army was disor- 
ganized, and most of those who composed it from the Carolinas 
returned to their homes. Between these and the Scotch Tories, as 
the Loyalists were termed, there was a continual partisan strife, each 
party resorting to the most cruel murders, burning and destroying 
the homes and the property of each other. Partisan bands were 
organized by each, and under desperate leaders did desperate deeds. 
It was then and there that Marion and Fanning became conspicuous, 
and were respectively the terror of Whigs and Tories. 

There were numerous others of like character, though less ef- 
ficient and less conspicuous. The exploits of such bands are deemed 
beneath the dignity of history, and now only live in the memories 
of those who received them traditionally from the actors, their asso- 
ciates or descendants. Those acts constitute mainly the tragic 
horrors of war, and evidence the merciless inhumanity of enraged 



FIFTY YEARS. I7 

men, unrestrained by civil or moral law. Injuries he deems wanton 
prompt the passions of his nature to revenge, and he hastens to re- 
taliate upon his enemy, with increased horrors, their savage 
brutalities. 

As the leader of a small band of neighbors who had united for 
protection and revenge, Colonel Love became conspicuous for his 
courage and cruelty. It was impossible for these, his associates, as 
for their Tory neighbors and enemies, to remain at their homes, or 
even to visit them, except at night, and then most stealthily. The 
country abounds with swamps more or less dense and irreclaimable, 
which must always remain a hiding-place for the unfortunate or 
desperate. In these the little bands by day were concealed, issuing 
forth at night to seek for food or spoils. Their families were often 
made the victims of revenge ; and instances were numerous where 
feeble women and little children were slain in cold blood by neigh- 
bors long and familiarly known to each other, in retaliatioii of like 
atrocities perpetrated by their husbands, sons, or brothers. 

It was a favorite pastime with my grandmother, when the morning's 
work wiis done, to uncover her flax-wheel, seat herself, and call me 
to sit by her, and, after my childish manner, read to her from the 
"Life of General Francis Marion," by Mason L. Weems, the graphic 
account of the general's exploits, by the venerable parson. There 
was not a story in the book that she did not know, almost as a party 
concerned, and she would ply her work of flax-spinning while she 
gave me close and intense attention. At times, when the historian 
was at fault in his facts — and, to say the truth, that was more fre- 
quently the case than comports with veracious history — she would 
cease the impelling motion of her foot upon the pedal of her little 
wheel, drop her thread, and, gently arresting the fly of her spool, 
she would lift her iron-framed spectacles, and with great gravity say : 
"Read that again. Ah! it is not as it happened, your grandfather 
was in that fight, and I will tell you how it was." This was so fre- 
quently the case, that now, when more than sixty years have flown, 
I am at a loss to know, if the knowledge of most of these facts which 
tenaciously clings to my memory, was originally derived from < 
VVeems's book, or my grandmother's narrations. In these forays 
and conflicts, whenever my grandfather was a party, her information 
was derived from him and his associates, and of course was deemed 
2* B 



l8 THEME MORIESOF 

by her authentic ; and whenever these differed from the historian's 
narrative, his, of consequence, was untrue. Finally, Weems, upon 
one of his book-selling excursions, which simply meant disposing of 
his own writings, came through her neighborhood, and with the 
gravity of age, left verbally his own biography with Mrs. Mcjoy, a 
neighbor ; this made him, as he phrased it. General Washington's 
preacher. He was never after assailed as a lying author : but when- 
ever his narrative was opposed to her memory, she had the excuse 
for him, that his informant had deceived him. 

To have seen General Washington, even without having held the 
holy office of his preacher, sanctified in her estimation any and every 
one. She had seen him, and it was the especial glory of her life. 
Yes, she had seen him, and remembered minutely his eyes, his hair, 
his mouth and his hands — and even his black horse with a star in 
his face, and his one white foot and long, sweeping tail. So often 
did I listen to the story, that in after boyhood I came to believe I 
had seen him also, though his death occurred twenty days before I 
was born. My dear, good mother has often told me that but for 
an attack of ague, which kept the venerable lady from our home for 
a month or more, I should have been honored with bearing the old 
hero's name through life. So intent was she in this particular, that 
she never liked my being named after Billy Crafford (for so she 
pronounced his name) for whom the partiality of my father caused 
him to name me. Few remain to remember the horrors of this 
partisan warfare. The very traditions are being obliterated by 
those of the recent civil war, so rife with scenes and deeds sufficiently 
horrible for the appetite of the curious in crime and cruelty. 



FIFTY YEARS. I9 

CHAPTER II. 

PIONEER LIFE. 

Settlement OF Middle Georgia — Prowling Indians — Scouts and their 
Dogs — Classes of Settlers — Prominence of Virginians — Causes of 
Distinction — Clearing — Log-Rolling — Frolics — Teachers Cummings 
AND Duffy — The Schoolmaster's Nose — Flogging — Emigration to 
Alabama. 

THE early settlement of Middle Georgia was principally by 
emigrants from Virginia and North Carolina. These were a 
rough, poor, but honest people, with little or no fortunes, and who 
were quite as limited in education as in fortune. Their necessities 
made them industrious and frugal. Lands were procured at the ex- 
pense of surveying; the soil was virgin and productive; rude 
cabins, built of poles, constituted not only their dwellings but every 
necessary outbuilding. Those who first ventured beyond the Ogee- 
chee generally selected some spot where a good spring of water was 
found, not overlooked by an elevation so close as to afford an oppor- 
tunity to the Indians, then very troublesome, to fire into the little 
stockade forts erected around these springs for their security against 
the secret attacks of the prowling and merciless Creeks and 
Cherokees. 

Usually several families united in building and living in these 
forts. As soon as this protection was completed, the work of clear- 
ing away the surrounding forest was commenced, that the land 
should afford a field for cultivation. While thus employed, sentinels 
were stationed at such points in the neighborhood as afforded the 
best opportunity for descrying the approach of Indians, and the 
watch was most careful. When those employed in hunting (for 
every community had its hunters) discovered, orthought they had dis- 
covered signs of the presence of the savages, scouts were immediately 
sent out to discover if they were lurking anywhere in the neighbor- 
hood. This was the most arduous and perilous duty of the pioneers, 
and not unfrequently the scout, or spy as he was usually termed, went 
to return no more. When seed -time came, corn, a small patch of 



20 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

cotton and another of flax were planted, and cultivation continued 
under the same surveillance. 

The dog, always the companion of man, was carefully trained to 
search for the prowling Indians ; and by daylight every morning the 
clearing, as the open lands were universally termed, was passed 
around by a cautious scout, always preceded by his dogs, who 
seemed as conscious of their duty and as faithful in its discharge as 
was their master. If he reported no Indians, the work of cultiva- 
tion commenced, and the sentinels repaired to their posts. These 
were usually changed whenever the slightest sign of Indians any- 
where in the country could be found, lest their posts might have 
been found and marked, and ambushed at night. Yet, despite this 
prudent caution, many a sentinel perished at his post. The unerr- 
ing arrow gave no alarm, and the sentinel slain, opened an approach 
for the savages; and not unfrequently parties at labor were thus 
surprised and shot in full view of those in the fort. 

Occasionally an emigrant brought with him a slave or two : these 
were rich, and invariably were the leading men in the communities. 
Those from Virginia were more frequently possessed of this species 
of property than those from the Carolinas, and, coming from an 
older country, had generally enjoyed better opportunities and were 
more cultivated. A common necessity harmonized all, and the state 
of society was a pure democracy. These communities were usually 
from twenty to fifty miles apart, and about them a nucleus was 
formed, inviting those who sought the new country for a home to 
locate in the immediate vicinity. Security and the enjoyment of 
social intercourse were more frequently the incentives for these 
selections than the fertility of the soil or other advantages. One 
peculiarity was observable, which their descendants, in their emigra- 
tion to the West, continue to this day to practise : they usually came 
due west from their former homes, and were sure to select, as nearly 
as possible, a new one in the same parallel, and with surroundings as 
nearly like those they had left as possible. With the North Caroli- 
nian, good spring-water, and pine-knots for his fire, were the sine 
qua non. These secured, he went to work with the assiduity and 
perseverance of a beaver to build his house and open his fields. 
The Virginians, less particular, but more ambitious, sought the best 
lands for grain and tobacco ; consequently they were more diffused, 



F I F T Y V E A R S. 21 

and their improvements, from their superior wealth, were more 
imposing. 

Wealth in all communities is comparative, and he who has only a 
few thousand dollars, where no one else has so much, is the rich 
man, and ever assumes the rich man's prerogatives and bearing. 
All experience has proved that as a man estimates himself, so in 
time will the community esteem him ; and he who assumes to lead or 
dictate will soon be permitted to do so, and will become the first in 
prominence and influence in his neighborhood, county, or State. 
Greatness commences humbly and progresses by assumption. The 
humble ruler of a neighborhood, like a pebble thrown into a pond, 
will continue to increase the circle of his influence until it reaches the 
limits of his county. The fathers speak of him, the children hear 
of him, his name is a household word ; if he but assumes enough, 
in time he becomes the great man of the county ; and if with impu- 
dence he unites a modicum of talent, well larded with a ctmning 
deceit, it will not be long before he is Governor or member of 
Congress. It is not surprising, then, that in nearly every one of 
these communities the great man was a Virginian. It has- been 
assumed by the Virginians that they have descended from a superior 
race, and this may be true as regards many families whose ancestors 
were of Norman descent ; but it is not true of the mass of her popu- 
lation ; and for one descendant from the nobility and gentry of the 
mother country, there are thousands of pure Anglo-Saxon blood. 
It was certainly true, from the character and abilities of her public 
men, in her colonial condition and in the earlier days of the republic, 
she had a right to assume a superiority ; but this, I fancy, was more 
the result of her peculiar institutions than of any superiority of race or 
greater purity of blood. I am far, however, from underrating the 
influence of blood. That there are species of the same race supe- 
rior in mental as well as in physical formation is certainly true. The 
peculiar organization of the brain, its fineness of texture in some, 
distinguish them as mentally superior to others, as the greater devel- 
opment of bone and muscle marks the superiority of physical 
power. Very frequently this difference is seen in brothers, and some- 
times in families of the same parents — the males in some usurping 
all the mental acumen, and in others the females. Why this is so, 
I cannot stop to speculate. 



22 THE MEMORIES OF 

Virginia, in her many divisions of territory, was granted to the 
younger sons of the nobility and gentry of England. They came 
with the peculiar habits of their class, and located upon these grants, 
bringing with them as colonists their dependants in England, and 
retaining here all the peculiarities of caste. The former were the 
governing class at home, and asserted the privilege here ; the latter 
were content that it should be so. In the formation of the first con- 
stitution for Virginia, the great feature of a landed aristocracy was 
fully recognized in the organic law. The suffragist was the landed 
proprietor, and in every county where his possessions were this right 
attached. They recognized landed property as the basis of govern- 
ment, and demanded the right for it of choosing the lawmakers and 
the executors of the law. All power, and very nearly all of the 
wealth of the State, was in the hands of the landlords, and these 
selected from their own class or caste the men who were to conduct 
the government. To this class, too, were confined most of the 
education and learning in the new State ; and in choosing for the 
Legislature or for Congress, State pride and the love of power 
prompted the selection of their brightest and best men. 

Oratory was esteemed the-first attribute of superior minds, and 
was assiduously cultivated. There were few newspapers, and the 
press had not attained the controlling power over the public mind 
as now. Political information was disseminated chiefly by public 
speaking, and every one aspiring to lead in the land was expected to 
be a fine speaker. This method, and the manner of voting, forced 
an open avowal of political opinion. Each candidate, upon the 
day of election, took his seat upon the bench of the judge in the 
county court-house, and the suffragist appeared at the bar, demand- 
ing to exercise his privilege in the choice of his representative. This 
was done by declaring the names of those he voted for. These 
peculiar institutions cultivated open and manly bearing, pride, and 
independence. There was little opportunity for the arts of the 
demagogue ; and the elevation of sentiment in the suffragist made 
him despise the man, however superior his talents, who would 
attempt them. The voter's pride was to sustain the power of his 
State in the national councils, to have a great man for his Governor ; 
they were the representatives of his class, and he felt his own 
importance in the greatness of his representative. It is not to be 



FIFTY YEARS. 23 

wondered at, under these circumstances; that Virginia held for many 
years the control of the Government, furnishing Presidents of tran- 
scendent abilities to the nation, and filling her councils with men 
whose talents and eloquence and proud and independent bearing 
won for them, not only the respect of the nation's representatives, 
but the power to control the nation's destinies, and to be looked 
upon as belonging to a superior race. 

There were wanting, however, two great elements in the nation's 
institutions, to sustain in its pride and efficiency this peculiar advan- 
tage, to wit, the entailment of estates, and the right of primogeniture. 
Those landed estates soon began to be subdivided, and in propor- 
tion as they dwindled into insignificance, so began to perish the 
prestige of their proprietors. The institution of African slavery 
served for a long time to aid in continuing the aristocratic features of 
Virginia society, though it conferred no legal privileges. As these, 
and the lands, found their way into many hands, the democratic 
element began to aspire and to be felt. The struggle was long and 
severe, but finally, in 1829 or 1830, the democratic element triumphed, 
and a new constitution was formed, extending universal suffrage to 
white men. This degraded the constituent and representative alike, 
and all of Virginia's power was soon lost in the councils of the 
nation. But the pride of her people did not perish with her aris- 
tocracy ; this continued, and permeated her entire people. They 
preserved it at home, and carried it wherever they went. Those 
whose consideration at home was at zero, became of the first families 
abroad, until Virginia pride became a by-word of scorn in the west- 
ern and more southern States. Yet despite all this, there is great- 
ness in the Virginians: there is superiority in her people, — a lofti- 
ness of soul, a generosity of hospitality, a dignified patience under 
suffering, which command the respect and admiration of every 
appreciative mind. 

Very soon after the Revolution, the tide of emigration began to 
flow toward Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. Those from Vir- 
ginia who sought new homes went principally to Kentucky, as much 
because it was a part of the Old Dominion, as on account of climate 
and soil. Those from North Carolina and South Carolina preferred 
Tennessee, and what was then known as Upper Georgia, but now as 
Middle Georgia; yet there was a sprinkling here and there through- 



24 THE MEMORIES OF 

out Georgia from Virginia. Many of these became leading men in 
the State, and their descendants still boast of their origin, and in plen- 
ary pride point to such men as William H. Crawford and Peter Early 
as shining evidences of the superiority of Virginia's blood. 

Most of these emigrants, however, were poor ; but where all were 
poor, this was no degradation. The concomitants of poverty in 
densely populated communities — where great wealth confers social 
distinction and frowns from its association the poor, making poverty 
humility, however elevated its virtues — were unknown in these new 
countries. The nobler virtues, combined with energy and intellect, 
alone conferred distinction ; and I doubt if the world ever furnished 
a more honest, virtuous, energetic, or democratic association of men 
and women than was, at the period of which I write, to be found 
constituting the population of these new States. From whatever 
cause arising, there certainly was, in the days of my early memory, 
more scrupulous truth, open frankness, and pure, blunt honesty per- 
vading the whole land than seem to characterize its present popula- 
tion. It was said by Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, that bad 
roads and fist-fights made the best militia on earth ; and these may 
have been, in some degree, the means of moulding into fearless 
honesty the character of these people. They encountered all the 
hardships of opening and subduing the country, creating highways, 
bridges, churches, and towns with their public buildings. These 
they met cheerfully, and working with a will, triumphed. After 
months of labor, a few acres were cleared and the trees cut into con- 
venient lengths for handling, and then the neighbors were invited to 
assist in what was called a log-rolling. This aid was cheerfully 
given, and an offer to pay for it would have been an insult. It was 
returned in kind, however, when a neighbor's necessities required. 
These log-rollings were generally accompanied with a quilting, 
which brought together the youth of the neighborhood ; and the 
winding up of the day's work was a frolic, as the dance and other 
amusements of the time were termed. Upon occasions like this, 
feats of strength and activity universally constituted a part of the 
programme. The youth who could pull down his man at the end 
of the hand-stick, throw him in a wrestle, or outstrip him in a foot- 
race, was honored as the best man in the settlement, and was always 
greeted with a cheer from the older men, a slap on the shoulder by 



FIFTY YEARS. 25 

the old ladies, and the shy but approving smiles of the girls, — had 
his choice of partners in the dance, and in triumph rode home on 
horseback with his belle, the horse's consciousness of bearing away 
the championship manifesting itself in an erect head and stately step. 
The apparel of male and female was of home-spun, woven by 
the mothers and sisters, and was fashioned, I was about to say, by 
the same fair hands ; but these were almost universally embrowned 
with exposure and hardened by toil. Education was exceedingly 
hmited : the settlements were sparse, and school-houses were at long 
intervals, and in these the mere rudiments of an English education 
were taught — spelling, reading, and writing, with the four elemen- 
tary rules of arithmetic ; and it was a great advance to grapple with 
the grammar of the language. As population and prosperity in- 
creased, their almost illiterate teachers gave place to a better class ; 
and many of my Georgia readers will remember as among these the 
old Irish preachers, Cummings, and that remarkable brute, Daniel 
Duffee. He was an Irishman of the Pat Freney stripe, and I fancy 
there are many, with gray heads and wrinkled fronts, who can look 
upon the cicatrices resulting from his merciless blows, and remem- 
ber that Milesian malignity of face, with its toad-like nose, with 
the same vividness with which it presents itself to me to-day. Yes, 
I remember it, and have cause. When scarcely ten years of age, in 
his little log school-house, the aforesaid resemblance forced itself 
upon me with such vim that involuntarily I laughed. For this 
outbreak against the tyrant's rules I was called to his frowning 
presence. 

"What are you laughing at, you whelp?" was the rude inquiry. 

Tremblingly I replied: "You will whip me if I tell you." 

"And you little devil, I will whip you if you don't," was his 
rejoinder, as he reached for his well-trimmed hickory, one gi many 
conspicuously displayed upon his table. With truthful smcerity I 
answered : 

"Father Duffy, I was laughing to think how much your nose is 
like a frog." 

It was just after play-time, and I was compelled to stand by him 

and at intervals of ten minutes receive a dozen lashes, laid on with 

brawny Irish strength, until discharged with the school at night. 

To-day I bear the marks of that whipping upon my shoulders and 

3 



26 THE MEMORIES OF 

in my heart. But Duffy was not alone in the strictness and severity 
of his rules and his punishments. Children were taught to believe 
that there could be no discipline in a school of boys and girls with- 
out the savage brutality of the lash, and the teacher who met his 
pupils with a caressing smile was considered unworthy his vocation. 
Learning must be thrashed into the tender mind ; nothing was such 
a stimulus to the young memory as the lash and the vulgar, abusive 
reproof of the gentle and meritorious teacher. 

There was great eccentricity of character in all the conduct and 
language of Duffy. He had his own method of prayer, and his own 
peculiar style of preaching, frequently calling out the names of per- 
sons in his audience whom it was his privilege to consider the 
chiefest of sinners, and to implore mercy for them in language 
offensive almost to decency. Sometimes, in the presence of per- 
sons inimical to each other, he would ask the Lord to convert the 
sinners and make the fools friends, first telling the Lord who they 
were by name, to the no small amusement of his most Christian 
audience ; many of whom would in deep devotion respond with a 
sonorous "Amen." 

From such a population sprang the present inhabitants of Georgia ; 
and by such men were they taught, in their budding boyhood, the 
rudiments of an English education ; — such, I mean, of the inhabitants 
who still live and remember Duffy, Cummings, and McLean. They 
are few, but the children of the departed remember traditionally 
these and their like, in the schoolmasters of Georgia from 1 790 to 
1815. 

At the close of the war of 181 2-15, a new impetus was given to 
everything throughout the South, and especially fo education. The 
ambition for wealth seized upon her people, the high price of cotton 
favored its accumulation, and with it came new and more extravagant 
wants, new and more luxurious habits. The plain homespun jean 
coat gave way to the broad-cloth one ; and the neat, Turkey-red 
striped Sunday frock of the belle yielded to the gaudy red calico 
one, and there was a sniff of aristocratic contempt in the upturned 
nose towards those who, from choice or necessity, continued in the 
old habits. 

Material wealth augmented rapidly, and with it came all of its 
assumptions. The rich lands of Alabama were open to settlement. 



r 



FTYYEARS. 2/ 

The formidable .jsiature ^'^'^^ hctn humbled, and many of the 
wealthiest cultivators or .he soil were commencing to emigrate to a 
newer and more fertile country, where smiling Fortune beckoned 
them. 

The first to lead off in this exodus was the Bibb family, long dis- 
tinguished for wealth and influence in the State. The Watkinses, 
the Sheroos,. and Bearings followed : some to north, some to south 
Alabama. W. W. Bibb was appointed, by Mr. Madison, Territorial 
Governor of Alabama, and was followed to the new El Dorado by 
his brothers, Thomas, John Dandridge, and Benajah, all men of 
substance and character. 

For a time this rage for a new country seemed to threaten Georgia 
and South Carolina with the loss of their best population. This 
probably would have been the result of the new acquisition, but, in 
its midst, the territory between the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee 
was ceded by the Indians, and afforded a new field for settlement, 
which effectually arrested this emigration at its flood. The new 
territory added to the dominion of Georgia was acquired mainly 
through the energy and pertinacity of George M. Troup, at the 
time Governor of Georgia. 

I have much to record of my memories concerning this new acqui- 
sition, but must reserve them for a new chapter. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE GEORGIA COMPANY. 

Yazoo Purchase — Governor Mathews — James Jackson — Burning op 
THE Yazoo Act — Development of Free Government — Constitutional 
Convention — Slavery: Its Introduction and Effects. 

THE grant by the British Government of the territory of Geor- 
gia to General Oglethorpe and company, comprised what now 
constitutes the entira States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, 
except that portion of Alabama and Mississippi lying below the 



28 THE M E M O R I.E S X) XiV^, o -^ 



thirty-first degree of north latitude, w^- ^- strictnt, of those States 
were originally part of West P"lorida. ^ " 

The French settlements extended up the Mississippi, embracing 
both sides of that river above the mouth of Red River, which dis- 
charges into the former in the thirty-first degree of north latitude. 
The river from the mouth of the Bayou Manshac, which left the 
river fourteen miles below Baton Rouge, on the east side, up to the 
thirty-first degree of north latitude, was the boundary line between 
West Florida and Louisiana. Above this point the French claimed 
jurisdiction on both sides ; but Georgia disputed this jurisdiction 
over the east bank, and claimed to own from the thirty-first to the 
thirty-sixth degree of latitude. There were many settlements made 
by Americans upon this territory at a very early day, — one at 
Natchez, one at Fort Adams, and several on the Tombigbee, the 
St. Stephens, at Mcintosh's Bluff, and on Bassett's Creek. These 
settlements formed the nucleus of an American population in the 
States of Mississippi and Alabama. The lands bordering upon these 
rivers and their tributaries were known to be exceedingly fertile, and 
proffered inducements to settlers unequalled in all the South. Specu- 
lation was very soon directed to these regions. A company was 
formed of citizens of Georgia and Virginia for the purchase of an 
immense tract of territory, including most of what is now Mississippi 
and Alabama. This company was known as the Georgia Company, 
and the territory as the Yazoo Purchase. It was a joint-stock 
company, and managed by trustees or directors. The object was 
speculation. It was intended to purchase from Georgia this domain, 
then to survey it and subdivide it into tracts to suit purchasers. 
Parties were delegated to make this purchase : this could only be 
done by the Legislature and by special act passed for that purpose. 
The proposition was made, and met with formidable opposition. 
The scheme was a gigantic one and promised great results, and the 
l)arties concerned were bold and unscrupulous. They very soon 
ascertained that means other than honorable to either party must be 
resorted to to secure success. The members to be operated upon 
were selected, and the company's agents began the work. Enough 
was made, by donations of stock and the direct ])aymcnt of money by 
those interested in the scheme, to effect the passage of the Act and se- 
cure the contract of purchase and sale. The opposition denied the 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 29 

power of the Legislature to >ell ; asserting that the territory was 
sacred to the people of the , e, and that those, in selecting their 
representatives, had never c''^' nplated delegating any such powers 
as would enable them to disp by sale of any part of the public 
domain; that it was the province of the Legislature, under the Con- 
stitution, to pass laws for the general good alone, and not to bar- 
ter or sell any portion df the territory of the State to be separated 
'"rom the domain and authority of the State. They insisted that the 
natter should be referred to the people, who at the next election of 
members to the Legislature should declare their will and intention 
as to this sale. 

On the other side they were met with the argument, that the 
Legislature was sovereign and the supreme power of the State, and 
might rightfully do anything, not forbidden in the Constitution, per- 
taining to sovereignty, which they in their wisdom might deem essen- 
tial to the general welfare ; that the territory included in the grant 
to Oglethorpe and company was entirely too extended, and that by 
a sale a new State or States would be formed, which would increase 
the political power of the South — especially in the United States 
Senate, where she greatly needed representation to counterbalance 
the influence of the small States of the North in that body. These 
arguments were specious, but it was well understood they were only 
meant to justify a vote for the measure which corruption had 
secured. 

The Act was passed by a bare majority of both branches of the 
Legislature, and the sale consummated. Before the passage of this 
measure, the will of the people had been sufficiently expressed in the 
indignant outburst of public feeling, as to leave no doubt upon the 
minds of the corrupt representatives that they had not only for- 
feited the public confidence, but had actually imperilled their per- 
sonal safety. Upon the return to their homes, after the adjourn- 
ment, they were not only met with universal scorn, but with inaj)- 
peasable rage. Some of the most guilty were slain; some had their 
houses burned over their heads, and others fled the State ; one was 
pursued and killed in Virginia, and all not only entailed upon them- 
selves infamy, but also upon their innocent posterity ; and to-day, to 
be known as the descendant of a Yazoo man is a badge of disgrace. 
The deed, however, was done: how to undo it became an agitating 



30 THEMEMORIESOF 

question. The Legislature next ensuing was elected pledged to 
repeal the odious Act; and upon its convening, all made haste to 
manifest an ardent zeal in this worki ' 

At the time of the passage of this Act, the Legislature sat in 
Augusta, and the Governor who by the Act was empowered to 
make the sale was George Mathews. MaJ^ews was an Irishman 
by birth, and was very illiterate, but a man of strong passions and 
indomitable will. During the war of the Revolution he had, as a 
partisan officer, gained some distinction, and in the upper counties 
exercised considerable influence. Many anecdotes are related of 
his intrepidity and daring, and quite as many of his extraordinary 
orthography. At the battle of Eutaw Springs, in South Carolina, 
he was severely wounded, at the moment when the Continental forces 
were retiring to a better position. A British soldier, noticing some 
vestiges of a uniform upon him, lifted his musket to stab him with 
the bayonet ; his commander caught the weapon, and angrily de- 
manded, " Would you murder a wounded officer ? Forward, sir ! " 
Mathews, turning upon his back, asked, "To whom do I owe my 
life?" "If you consider it an obligation, sir, to me," answered 
the lieutenant. Mathews saw the uniform was British, and furiously 
replied, " Well, sir, I want you to know that I scorn a life saved by 
a d d Briton." The writer had the anecdote from a distin- 
guished citizen of Georgia, who was himself lying near by, severely 
wounded, and who in one of his sons has given to Georgia a 
Governor. 

General Wade Hampton, George Walker, William Longstreet, 
Zachariah Cox, and Matthew McAllister were the parties most active 
in procuring the passage of the Yazoo Act. That bribery was 
extensively practised, there is no doubt, and the suspicion that it even 
extended to the Executive gained credence as a fact, and was the 
cause of preventing his name ever being given to a county in the 
State : and it is a significant fact of this suspicion, and also of the 
great unpopularity of the Act, that to this day every effort to that 
end has failed. No act of Governor Mathews ever justified any 
such suspicion. As Governor of the State, and believing the sover- 
eign power of the State was in the Legislature, and consequently the 
power to dispose of the public domain, he only approved the Act as 
the State's Executive, and fulfilled the duties assigned to him by the 



FIFTY YEARS. 3I 

law. But suspicion fastened upon him, and its effects remain to 
this day. 

The pertinacious discussions between the parties purchasing and 
those opposed to the State's selling and her authority to sell, created 
immense excitement, and pervaded the entire State. The decision 
of the Supreme Court of the United States was invoked in the case 
of Fletcher versus Peck, which settled the question of the power of 
the State to sell the public domain, and the validity of the sale made 
by the State to the Georgia Company. In the meantime the Legis- 
lature of Georgia had repealed the law authorizing the Governor to 
sell. This decision of the Supreme Court brought about an amicable 
adjustment of the difficulties between the Company and the State, 
with the Government of the United States as a third party. 

The excitement was not so much on account of the sale, though 
this was bitter, as of the corruption which procured it. The test of 
public confidence and social respect was opposition to the Yazoo 
fraud. Every candidate at the ensuing election for members of the 
Legislature was compelled to declare his position on the subject of 
repealing this Act, and, almost to a man, every one who believed in 
the power of the State to sell, and that rights had vested in the pur- 
chasers and their assigns, was defeated. 

James Jackson, a young, ardent, and talented man, who had in 
very early life, by his abilities and high character, so won the public 
confidence that he had been elected Governor of the State, when 
he was ineligible because of his youth, was at this time a member of 
Congress. He made a tour through the State, preaching a crusade 
against the corrupt Legislature, and denouncing those who had pro- 
duced and profited by this corruption, inflaming the public mind 
almost to frenzy. He resided in Savannah, and was at the head 
of the Republican or Jeffersonian party, which was just then being 
organized in opposition to the administration of John Adams, the 
successor of Washington. His parents had emigrated from England, 
and fixed their home in Savannah, where young Jackson was born, 
and where, from the noble qualities of his nature, he had become 
immensely popular. 

Talent and virtuous merit at that period was the passport to public 
confidence. Had it continued to be, we should never have known 
the present deplorable condition of the country, with the Govern- 



32 THE MEMORIES OF 

ment sinking into ruin ere it has reached the ten o'clock of national 
life. 

His Shibboleth was, that the disgrace of the State must be wiped out 
by the repeal of the Yazoo Act ; and repeal rang from every mouth, 
from Savannah to the mountains. Jackson resigned his seat in Con- 
gress, and was elected a member of the Legislature. Immediately 
upon the assembling of this body, a bill was introduced repealing 
the odious Act, and ordering the records containing it to be burned. 
This was carried out to the letter. Jackson, heading the Legislature 
and the indignant public, proceeded in procession to the public 
square in Louisville, Jefferson County, where the law and the fagots 
were piled ; when, addressing the assembled multitude, he denounced 
the men who had voted for the law as bribed villains — those who 
had bribed them, and the Governor who had signed it ; and declared 
that fire from heaven only could sanctify the indignation of God 
and man in consuming the condemned record of accursed crime. 
Then, with a Promethean or convex glass condensing the sun's rays, 
he kindled the flame which consumed the records containing the 
hated Yazoo Act. 

Jackson was a man of ordinary height, slender, very erect in his 
carriage, with red hair and intensely blue eyes. His manners were 
courteous, affable, and remarkable for a natural dignity which added 
greatly to his influence with the people. He was the model from 
which was grown that chivalry and nobility of soul and high bearing 
so characteristic of the people of Southern Georgia. In truth, the 
essence of his character seemed subtilly to pervade the entire circle 
in which he moved, inspiring a purity of character, a loftiness of 
honor, which rebuked with its presence alone everything that was 
low, little, or dishonest. Subsequently he was elected Governor of 
the State, bringing all the qualities of his nature into the administra- 
tion of the office; he gave it a dignity and respectability never 
subsequently degraded, until an unworthy son of South Carolina, 
the pus and corruption of unscrupulous ])arty, was foisted into the 
position. Strength of will, a ripe judgment, and purity of intention, 
were the great characteristics distinguishing him in public life, and 
these have endeared his name to the people of Georgia, where now 
remain many of his descendants, some of whom have filled high 
positions in the State and United States, and not one has ever 



F I F T V YEA R S. 33 

soiled the honor or tarnished the name with an act unworthy a 
gentleman. 

The Revolutionary struggle called out all the nobler qualities 
nature has bestowed on man, in those who conceived the desire and 
executed the determination to be free. The heroic was most promi- 
nent : woman seemed to forget her feebleness and timidity, and 
boldly to dare, and with increased fortitude to bear every danger, 
every misfortune, with a heroism scarcely compatible with the deli- 
cacy of her nature. To this, or some other inexplicable cause, 
nature seemed to resort in preparation for coming events. In every 
State there came up men, born during the war or immediately there- 
after, of giant minds — men seemingly destined to form and give 
direction to a new Government suited to the genius of the people 
and to the physical peculiarities of the country where it was to control 
the destinies of hundreds of millions of human beings yet unborn, 
and where the soil was virgin and unturned, which nature had pre- 
pared for their coming. This required a new order of men. These 
millions were to be free in the fullest sense of the word ; they were 
only to be controlled by laws ; and the making of these laws was to 
be their own work, and nature was responding to the exigencies of 
man. 

The early probation of independent government taught the neces- 
sity of national concentration as to the great features of government, 
at the same time demonstrating the importance of keeping the minor 
powers of government confined to the authority of the States. In 
the assembling of a convention for this purpose, which grew out of 
the free action of the people of each State, uninfluenced by law or 
precedent, we see congregated a body of men combining more 
talent, more wisdom, and more individuality of character than per- 
haps was ever aggregated in any other public body ever assembled. 
From this convention of sages emanated the Constitution of the 
United States ; and most of those constituting this body reassembled 
in the first Congress, which sat as the supreme power in the United 
States. It was these men and their coadjutors who inaugurated and 
gave direction to the new Government. Under its operations, the 
human mind and human soul seemed to expand and to compass 
a grasp it had scarcely known before. There were universal content 
and universal harmony. The laws were everywhere respected, and 



34 THE MEMORIES OF 

everywhere enforced. The freedom of thought, and the liberty of 
action unrestrained, stimulated an ambition in every man to dis- 
charge his duties faithfully to the Government, and honestly in all 
social relations. There was universal security to person and prop- 
erty, because every law-breaker was deemed a public enemy, and 
not only received the law's condemnation, but the public scorn. 
Under such a Government the rapid accumulation of wealth and 
population was a natural consequence. The history of the world 
furnishes no example comparable with the progress of the United 
States to national greatness. The civilized world appeared to feel 
the influence of her example and to start anew in the rivalry of 
greatness. Her soil's surplus products created the means of a widely 
extended commerce, and Americans can proudly refer to the eighty 
years of her existence as a period showing greater progress in wealth, 
refinement, the arts and sciences, and human liberty, than was ever 
experienced in any two centuries of time within the historical period 
of man's existence. My theme expands, and I am departing from the 
purposes of this work ; yet I cannot forbear the expression of opin- 
ion as to the causes of this result. I know I shall incur the deepest 
censure from the professors of a mawkish philanthropy, and a 
hypocritical religion which is cursing with its cant the very sources 
of this unparalleled progress, this unexampled prosperity. 

Slavery was introduced into the Colonies by English merchants 
about two <:enturies since : this was to supply a necessity — labor — 
for the purpose of developing the resources of this immense and 
fertile country. The African was designed by the Creator to sub- 
serve this purpose. His centre of creation was within the tropics, 
and his physical organization fitted him, and him alone, for field 
labor in the tropical and semi-tropical regions of the earth. He 
endures the sun's heat without pain or exhaustion in this labor, and 
yet he has not nor can he acquire the capacity to direct profitably 
this labor. It was then the design of the Creator that this labor 
should be controlled and directed by a superior intelligence. In 
the absence of mental capacity, we find him possessed of equal 
physical powers with any other race, with an amiability of temper 
which submits without resistance to this control. We find him, too, 
without moral, social, or political aspirations, contented and happy 
in the condition of servility to this superior intelligence, and rising 



FIFTY YEARS. 35 

in the scale of humanity to a condition which under any other circum- 
stances his race had never attained. I may be answered that this 
labor can be had from the black as a freeman as well as in the 
condition of a slave. To this I will simply say, experience has 
proved this to be an error. Such is the indolence and unambitious 
character of the negro that he will not labor, unless compelled by the 
apprehension of immediate punishment, to anything approaching his 
capacity for labor. His wants are few, they are easily supplied, 
and when they are, there is no temptation which will induce him to 
work. He cares nothing for social position, and will steal to supply 
his necessities, and feel no abasement in the legal punishment 
which follows his conviction ; nor is his social status among his race 
damaged thereby. As a slave to the white man, he becomes and 
has proved an eminently useful being to his kind — in every other 
condition, equally conspicuous as a useless one. The fertility of 
the soil and the productions of the tropical regions of the earth 
demonstrate to the thinking mind that these were to be cultivated 
and made to produce for the uses and prosperity of the human 
family. The great staples of human necessity and human luxury 
are produced here in the greatest abundance, and the gre^t majority 
of these nowhere else. The white man^ from his physical organiza- 
tion, cannot perform in these regions the labor necessary to their 
production. His centre of creation is in the temperate zones, and 
only there can he profitably labor in the earth's cultivation. But 
his mental endowments enable him to appropriate all which nature 
has supplied for the necessities of life and the progress of his race. 
He sees and comprehends in nature the designs of her Creator : 
these designs he develops, and the consequence is a constant and 
enlightened progress of his race, and the subjection of the physical 
world to this end. 

He finds the soil, the climate, the production, and the labor 
united, and he applies his intelligence to develop the design of this 
combination ; and the consequence has been the wonderful progress 
of the last two centuries. I hold it as a great truth that nature 
points to her uses and ends ; that to observe these and follow them 
is to promote the greatest happiness to the human family ; and that 
wherever these aims are diverted or misdirected, retrogression and 
human misery are the consequence. In all matters, experience is a 
better test than speculation ; and to surrender a great practical utility 



36 THEMEMORIESOF 

to a mere theory is great folly. But it has been done, and we abide 
the consequences. 

In all nations, a spurious, pretentious religion has been the avant- 
coureur of their destruction. In their inception and early progress 
this curse exercises but slight influence, and their growth is conse- 
quently healthy and vigorous. All nations have concealed this can- 
cerous ulcer, sooner or later to develop for their destruction. These 
wear out with those they destroy, and a new or reformed religion is 
almost always accompanied with new and vigorous developments 
in a new and progressive Government. The shackles which have 
paralyzed the mind, forbidding its development, are broken ; the 
unnatural superstition ceases to circumscribe and influence its opera- 
tions ; and thus emancipated, it recovers its elasticity and springs for- 
ward toward the perfection of the Creator. Rescued from these baleful 
influences, the new organization is vigorous and rapid in its growth, 
yielding the beneficent blessings natural to the healthful and unabused 
energies of the mind. But with maturity and age the webs of super- 
stition begin to fasten on the mind ; priests become prominent, and as 
is their wont, the moment they shackle the mind, they reach out for 
power, and the chained disciple of their superstition willingly yields, 
under the vain delusion that he shares and participates in this power 
as a holy office for the propagation of his creed — and retrogression 
commences. 

The effects of African slavery in the United States, upon the con- 
dition of both races, was eminently beneficial to both. In no 
condition, and under no other circumstances, had the African made 
such advances toward civilization : indeed, I doubt if he has not 
attained in this particular to the highest point susceptible to his nature. 
He has increased more rapidly, and his aspirations have become more 
elevated, and his happiness more augmented. With his labor directed 
by the intelligence of the white race, the prosperity of the world has 
increased in a ratio superior to any antecedent period. The pro- 
duction of those staples which form the principal bases of commerce 
has increased in a quadruple ratio. Cotton alone increased so rap- 
idly as to render its price so far below every other article which can 
be fashioned into cloth, that the clothing and sheeting of the civil- 
ized world was principally fabricated from it. The rapidity of its 
increased production was only equalled by the increase of wealth 
and comfort throughout the world. It regulates the exchanges almost 



II 



FIFTY YEARS. 37 

universally. It gave, in its growth, transportation, and manufacture, 
employment to millions, feeding and clothing half of Europe — 
increasing beyond example commercial tonnage, and stimulating 
the invention of labor-saving machinery — giving a healthy impulse 
to labor and enterprise in every avocation, and intertwining itself 
with every interest, throughout the broad expanse of civilization over 
the earth. To cotton, more than to any other one thing, is due the 
railroad, steamboat, and steamship, the increase of commerce, the 
rapid accumulation of fortunes, and consequently the diffusion of 
intelligence, learning, and civilization. 

Sugar, too, from the same cause, ceased to be a luxury, and became 
a necessity in the economy of living : coffee, too, became a stimu- 
lating beverage at every meal, instead of a luxury only to be indulged 
on rare occasions. How much the increased production of these 
three articles added to the commerce and wealth of the world during 
the last two centuries, and especially the last, is beyond computation. 
How much of human comfort and human happiness is now depend- 
ent upon their continued production, and in such abundance as to 
make them accessible to the means of all, may well employ the earnest 
attention of those who feel for the interest and happiness of their kind 
most. If these results have followed the institution of African sjavery, 
can it be inhuman and sinful ? Is it not rather an evidence that the 
Creator so designed ? 

But this is not all this institution has effected. Besides its pecimiary 
results, it has inspired in the superior race a nobility of feeling, 
resulting from a habit of command and a sense of independence, 
which is peculiar to privileged orders of men in civilized society. 
This feeling is manifested in high bearing and sensitive honor, a 
refinement of sentiment and chivalrous emprise unknown to commu- 
nities without caste. This is to be seen in the absence of everything 
little or mean. A noble hospitality, a scorn of bargaining, and a 
lofty yet eminently deferential deportment toward females: in this 
mould it has cast Southern society, and these traits made the Southern 
gentleman remarkable, wherever his presence was found. 

These were the men who led in the formation of the Government 
of the United States, and who gave tone and character to her legis- 
lative assembly, so long as they held control of the Government. A 
peer among these was James Jackson, and many of his confederates, 
of whom I shall have occasion to speak in the progress of this work. 
4 



38 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

CHAPTER IV. 

POLITICAL DISPUTATIONS. 

Baldwin — A Yankee's Political Stability — The Yazoo Question — Party 
Feuds and Fights — Deaf and Dumb Ministers — Clay — Jackson — 
Buchanan — Calhoun — Cotton and Free-Trade — The Clay and Ran- 
dolph Duel. 

AMONG the early immigrants into Georgia were Abraham 
Baldwin and William H. Crawford. Baldwin was from Con- 
necticut, Crawford from Virginia. Baldwin was a man of liberal 
education, and was destined for the ministry ; indeed, he hM taken 
orders, and was an officiating clergyman for some time in his native 
state. His family was English, and has given many distinguished 
men to the nation. After he arrived in Georgia, where he came to 
engage in his vocation, he very soon ascertained his profession was 
not one which in a new country promised much profit or distinc- 
tion ; and possessing in an eminent degree that Yankee ^^ cuieness'' 
which is quick to discover what is to the interest of its possessor, he 
abandoned the pulpit for the forum, and after a brief probation in 
a law office at nights and a school-house by day, he opened an 
office, and commenced the practice of law in Augusta. He had 
been educated a Federalist in politics, and had not concealed his 
sentiments in his new home. 

Mr. Jefferson and his political principles were extremely popular 
in Georgia, and though there were some distinguished Federalists in 
Augusta who were leaders in her society, their number in the State 
was too insignificant to hold out any prospect of preferment to a 
young, talented, and ambitious aspirant for political distinction. 
Baldwin was not slow to discover this, and, with the facile nature of 
his race, abandoned his political creed, as he had his professional 
pursuits. He saw Crawford was rising into public notice, and he 
knew his ability, and with characteristic impudence he thrust himself 
forward, and very soon was made a member of Congress. Here he 
was true to his last love, and became a leading member of the 
Republican party. By his conduct in this matter he made himself 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 39 

odious to his New England friends, who were unsparing of their 
abuse because of his treachery. 

For this he cared very little ; but bore well in mind that "the blood 
of the martyrs was the seed of the church," and that the hate of the 
Federalists was the passport to Republican favor. His zeal was that 
of the new convert, and it won for him the confidence of his party, 
and rapid preferment in the line of distinction. He was a man of 
decided abilities, and seemed destined to high distinction; but dying 
early, a member of the United States Senate, his hopes and aspira- 
tions here terminated. The State has honored and perpetuated his 
name by giving it to the county wherein is situated her seat of 
government. 

Crawford, like Baldwin, taught, and studied law at the same time. 
He was usher in a school taught by his life-long friend, Judge Yates. 
When admitted to practise law, he located in the little village of 
Lexington, in the County of Oglethorpe, and very soon was not only 
the leading lawyer, but the leading man of all the up-country of 
Georgia. 

Eminence is- always envied : this was conspicuously the fortune of 
Crawford. The population of the State was increasing rapidly, and 
young aspirants for fame and fortune were crowding to where these 
were promised most speedily. 

The Yazoo question had created deep animosities. General Elijah 
Clarke, and his son John, subsequently governor of the State, were 
charged with complicity in this great fraud. The father had distin- 
guished himself in repelling the Indians in their various forays upon 
the frontiers, and was a representative man. With strong will and 
distinguished courage, he, without much talent, was conspicuous 
among a people who were, like himself, rude, unlettered, but 
daring, and abounding in strong common-sense. 

There was a young man at the same time, a devoted friend of 
young Clarke, and follower of his father : he was an emigrant from 
one of the Middle States. Violent in his character, and incautious 
in the use of language, he very soon became offensive to his oppo- 
nents, and sought every opportunity to increase the bad feeling with 
which he was regarded. Siding with the Yazoo Company, he soon 
made himself odious to their enemies. The parties of Republicans 
and Federalists were bitter toward each other, and feuds were lead- 
ing to fights, and some of these of most deadly character. The 



40 THE MEMORIES OF 

conflicts with the Indians had kept alive the warlike spirit which the 
partisan warfare of the Revolution had cultivated at the South, and 
no virtue was so especially regarded by these people as that of per- 
sonal courage. The consequence was that no man, whatever his 
deportment or qualifications, could long fill the public eye without 
distinguishing himself for the possession of personal bravery. 

The Clarkes were the undisputed leaders of public opinion in the up- 
country, until Crawford came, and, by his great abilities and remark- 
able frankness of manner, won away to his support, and to the support 
of his opinions, a large majority of the people. This was not to be 
borne ; and young Van Allen was willingly thrust forward to test the 
courage of Crawford. Duelling was the honorable method of settling 
all difficulties between gentlemen, and Crawford was to be forced 
into a duel. If he refused to fight, he was ruined. This, however, 
he did not do ; and Van Allen was slain in the affair. 

This but whetted the rage of the Clarkes, and John Clarke was not 
long in finding an excuse to call to the field his hated foe. -In this 
duel Crawford was shot through the left \vrist, which partially dis- 
abled that arm for life. But this did not heal the «animosity ; its 
rancor became contagious, and involved the people of the State 
almost to a man ; nor did it end until both Clarke and Crawford 
were in the grave. 

The history and consequences of this feud, and the two factions 
which grew out of it, would be the history of Georgia for more than 
forty years. Each had an army of followers ; and all the talent of 
the State was divided between and leading these factions. There 
were many young men of decided talent rising into distinction in the 
l)rofessions, who were of necessity absorbed by these factions, and 
whose whole subsequent career was tainted with the ignoble preju- 
dices arising out of this association. Among the most prominent 
and talented of these was John Forsyth, Peter Early, George M. 
Troup, the man sans pair, sans reproche, Thomas W. Cobb, Stephen 
Upson, Duncan G. Campbell, the brother-in-law of Clarke, and 
l^ersonally and politically his friend, and who, from the purity of his 
character and elevated bearing, was respected, trusted, and beloved 
by all who knew him ; Freeman Walker, John M. Dooly, Augustus 
Clayton, Stephen W. Harris, and Eli S. Sherter, perhaps mentally 
equal to any son of Georgia. 

With the exception of Upson and Troup, these were all natives of 



FIFTY YEARS. 4? 

the State. Upson was from Connecticut, and was the son of a 
button-maker at Watertown, in that State. He was a thorough 
Yankee in all the qualities of perseverance, making and saving 
money. He was a pure man, stern and talented ; and as a lawyer, 
was scarcely equalled in the State. He and Cobb were students, 
SLTid J>r(?//ges of Crawford, and both signalized their whole lives by a 
devotion, amounting almost to fanaticism, to Mr. Crawford and his 
fortunes. 

George Michael Troup was born at Mcintosh's Bluff, on the Tom- 
bigbee River, in the State of Alabama. His father was an English- 
man, who, during the Revolution, removed to the place since called 
Mcintosh's Bluff. Mr. Crawford soon became prominent as a poli- 
tician, and adopting the party and principles of Jefferson, was trans- 
ferred in early life to the councils of the nation. In the United 
States Senate he was the compeer of Felix Grundy, John C. Cal- 
houn, Harrison Gray Otis, Rufus King, Daniel D. Tompkins, 
William B. Giles, Henry Clay, and many others of less distinction ; 
and was the especial friend of those remarkable men, Nathaniel 
Macon and John Randolph. 

At this period, there was'' an array of talent in Congress never 
equalled before or since. The aggressions of English cruisers upon 
our commerce, and the impressing of our seamen into the English 
service, had aroused the whole nation, and especially the South ; 
and the fiery talent of this section was called by the people, breath- 
ing war, into the national councils. 

Crawford was in the Senate from Georgia, and was a war-man. 
John Forsyth, John C. Calhoun, David R. Williams, George M. 
Troup, John Randolph, Philip Doddridge, James Barbour, Henry 
Clay, and William Lomax from South Carolina, were all compara- 
tively young men. 

Lowndes, Calhoun, Clay, and Troup were little more than thirty 
years of age, and yet they became prominent leaders of their party, 
exercising a controlling influence over the public mind, and shaping 
the policy of the Government. Crawford was the Mentor of this 
ardent band of lofty spirits — stimulating and checking, as occasion 
might require, the energies and actions of his young compeers. So 
conspicuous was he for talent, wisdom, and statesmanship, that he 
was proposed by the Republican party as a proper person to succeed 
Mr. Madison; and nothing prevented his receiving the nomination 
■ 4* 



42 THEMEMORIESOF 

of that party but his refusal to oppose Mr. Monroe. His magna- 
nimity was his misfortune. Had he been nominated, he would have 
been elected without opposition. The golden opportunity returned 
no more. He had succeeded Chancellor Livingston as minister to 
France, and of these two, Napoleon said "the United States had 
sent him two plenipotentiaries — the first was deaf, the latter dumb." 
Livingston was quite deaf, and Crawford could not speak French. 
At the court of Versailles, he served faithfully and efficiently the 
interests of his country, and returned with increased popularity. He 
filled, under Mr. Monroe, the office of Secretary of War for a short 
time, and then was transferred to the Secretaryship of the Treasury. 

In the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe there were three aspirants for the 
Presidency : Adams, Crawford, and Calhoun. Between Crawford 
and Calhoun a feud arose, which was mainly the cause of Mr. Cal- 
houn's name being withdrawn as a candidate, and the substitution 
of that of General Jackson. Crawford was one of the three highest 
returned to the House, and from whom a choice was to be made. 

Some twelve months anterior to the election he was stricken with 
paralysis; and both body and mind so much affected that his friends 
felt that it would be improper to elect him. Nevertheless he con- 
tinued a candidate until Mr. Adams was chosen. 

Mr. Clay had been voted for as a fourth candidate, but not re- 
ceiving electoral votes enough, failed to be returned to the House. 
Being at the time a member of the House of Representatives, it was 
supposed he held the control of the Western vote ; and consequently 
the power to elect whom he pleased. Mr. Clay was a great admirer 
of Mr. Crawford, though their intimacy had been somewhat inter- 
rupted by a personal difficulty between Mr. Randolph and Mr. Clay. 
Mr. Randolph being an especial friend and constant visitor at Mr. 
Crawford's, it would have been unpleasant to both parties to meet 
at his house. 

Only a few years anterior to Mr. Clay's death, and when he was 
visiting New Orleans, the writer had frequent interviews with him, 
and learned that he preferred Mr. Crawford to either Adams or 
Jackson ; and was only prevented voting for him by the prostration 
and hopeless condition of his health. 

The political friends of Mr. Clay from the West knew of this 
preference, and would have acted with him, only upon condition 
that Mr. Crawford should make him a member of his Cabinet. 



FIFTY YEA R S. 43 

This was communicated to Mr. Clay, who assigned his reasons for 
declining to vote for Mr. Crawford, and avowed his intention of 
giving his vote for Mr. Adams. Upon this announcement, it was 
urged upon Mr. Clay that Mr. Adams was uncommitted upon the 
policy which he had inaugurated as the American System ; that he 
stood pledged to the country for its success ; and that, without some 
pledge from Mr. Adams upon this point, he would be hazarding too 
much to give him his support — for this would certainly make him 
President. Mr. Clay's reply was : 

"I shall, as a matter of necessity, give my vote for Mr. Adams : 
Mr. Crawford's health puts him out of the question, and we are com- 
pelled to choose between Adams and Jackson. My opinion with 
regard to General Jackson is before the nation, it remains unaltered. 
I can never give a vote for any man for so responsible a position 
whose only claim is military fame. Jackson's violent temper and 
unscrupulous ch^Tracter, independent of his want of experience in 
statesmanship, would prevent my voting for him. I shall exact no 
pledge from Mr. Adams, but shall vote for him, and hold myself at 
liberty to support or oppose his administration, as it shall meet my 
approval or disapproval." 

Mr. Adams was elected ; and the friends of Mr. Clay insisted that 
he should accept the position of Secretary of State in the new Cabinet, 
which was tendered him by Mr. Adams. Mr. Clay thought it indeli- 
cate to do so. Whether true or not, the nation awarded to him the 
making of Mr. Adams President. 

General Jackson had received a larger vote in the electoral colleges 
than Adams, and his friends urged this as a reason that he was more 
acceptable to the nation, and the voting for Adams on the part of 
Clay and his friends was a palpable disregard of the popular will ; 
and that Clay had violated all his antecedents, and had thus deserted 
the principles of the Republican party. 

The friends of Mr. Crawford were silent until the organization of 
the new Cabinet. There had been a breach of amicable relations 
between Crawford and Jackson for some years, and of consequence 
between their party friends ; and it was supposed from this cause 
tliat Mr. Crawford would unite in the support of the Administration ; 
and when it was known that Clay had accepted the premiership, this 
was deemed certain, from the friendship long existing between Clay 
and himself. The terrible paralysis which had prostrated Mr. Craw- 



44 T II E M E M O R I E S O F 

ford extended to his mind, and he had ceased to hold the influence 
with his friends as controller, and had become the instrument in 
their hands. 

General Jackson received a hint that it would be well to have 
healed the breach between himself and Crawford. This it was sup- 
posed came from Forsyth, and it is further believed this was prompted 
by Van Buren. It may or may not have been so : Mr. Jackson's acute- 
ness rarely required hints from any one to stimulate or prompt to 
action its suggestions. All Washington City was astounded, one Sunday 
morning, at seeing the carriage of Jackson pull up at the residence of 
Mr. Crawford ; for their quarrel was known to every one, and it was 
heralded through the newspapers that a reconciliation had taken 
place between these great men. The interview was a protracted one : 
what occurred can only be known by subsequent developments in 
the political world. 

Van Buren had supported Crawford to the last extremity, and was 
greatly respected by him. His intense acuteness scented the prey 
afar off. Mr. Calhoun had been elected by the electoral colleges 
Vice-President, and this position, it was thought, notwithstanding his 
devotion to Jackson, would identify him with the Administration. He 
was young, talented, extremely popular, ambitious, and aspiring, 
and it was the opinion of all that he would urge his claims to the 
succession. 

The indignation which burst from the Southern and Middle States, 
and from many of the Western, at Mr. Clay's course, and the great 
unpopularity of the name of Adams, was an assurance that without 
great changes in public opinion Mr. Adams' administration would be 
confined to one term. Mr. Crawford was out of the question for 
all time, and it was apparent the contest was to be between Calhoun, 
Clay, and Jackson. 

They had all belonged to the Jeffersonian school of politics — 
had grown upon the nation's confidence rapidly through their support 
of and conducting the war to its glorious termination. But this 
party was now completely disrupted ; and from its elements new 
parties were to be formed. It only survived the dissolution of the 
Federal party a short time, and, for the want of opposition from 
without, discord and dissolution had followed. The political world 
was completely chaotic — new interests had arisen. The war had 
forced New England to manufacturing ; it had established the policy 



II 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 45 

of home production, and home protection ; the agricultural interest 
of the West was connected with the manufacturing interest of the 
North, and was to be her consumer ; but the planting interest of the 
South was deemed antagonistic to them. Her great staple, forming 
almost the sole basis of the foreign commerce of the country, 
demanded, if not free trade, an exceedingly liberal policy toward 
those abroad who were her purchasers. 

The war had given a new impetus to trade, new channels had been 
opened, the manufacture of cotton in England had become a source 
of wealth to the nation, and was rapidly increasing. America was 
her source of supply, and was the great consumer of her fabrics, 
and this fact was stimulating the growth of cotton into an activity 
which indicated its becoming the leading interest of the South, if 
not of the nation. The course of trade made it the great competitor 
of home manufactures : this would seem unnatural, but it was true — 
the one demanding protection, the other free trade. The source 
of supply of the raw material to both was the same, and America 
the great consumer for both. Protection secured the home market 
to the home manufacturer, compelling the consumer to pay more, 
and sell for less, by excluding the foreign manufacturer from the 
market, or imposing such burdens, by way of duties, as to compel 
him to sell at higher prices than would be a just profit on his labor 
and skill under the operation of free trade, and which should exempt 
from his competition the home manufacturer in the American market. 

All these facts were within -the purview of the sagacious politicians 
of the day ; and were evidently the elements of new parties. Mr. 
Clay had already given shape to his future policy, and had identified 
the new Administration with it. It was certain the South with great 
unanimity would be in opposition, and the sagacity of Van Buren 
discovered the necessity of uniting the friends of Jackson and Craw- 
ford. Should he, after feeling the political pulse of his own people, 
conclude to unite with the opposition, such a union would destroy 
Mr. Clay in the South, but might greatly strengthen Mr. Calhoun ; 
his destruction, however, must be left to the future. He was not long 
in determining. The reconciliation of Crawford and Jackson made 
the union of their friends no very difficult matter. Mr. Randolph, 
Mr. Macon, Mr. Forsyth, and Mr. Cobb had expressed themselves 
greatly gratified at this restoration of amity ; and at an informal meet- 
ing of their friends, Randolph said, in allusion to this adjustment: 



46 THE MEMORIES OF 

"I have no longer a fear that the seat first graced by Virginia's 
chosen sons will ever be disgraced by a renegade child of hers." 

Soon after the inauguration of Mr. Adams, and the adjournment 
of Congress, the nation was startled with the charge of corruption 
in the election of Mr. Adams. At first this was vague rumor. Mr. 
Clay was charged by the press throughout the country with bargain- 
ing with the friends of Adams, to cast his vote, and carry his 
influence to his support, upon the condition of his (Clay's) appoint- 
ment to the premiership in the Administration, should Adams be 
elected. 

There was no responsible name for this charge ; but at the ensuing 
session of Congress, a member from Pennsylvania, George Creemer, 
uttered from his seat the charge in direct terms. This seemed to 
give assurance of the truth of this damaging accusation. There was 
no public denial from Mr. Clay. The press in his support had 
from the first treated the story as too ridiculous to be noticed other 
than by a flat denial ; but the circumstances were sufficiently plausible 
to predicate such a slander, and the effect upon Mr. Clay was 
beginning to be felt seriously by his friends. In the mean time, 
rumors reached the popular ear that the proofs of its veracity were 
in the hands of General Jackson, whose popularity was running 
through the country with the warmth and rapidity of a fire upon the 
prairies. 

There was now a responsible sponsor, and Mr. Clay at once 
addressed a note to Creemer, demanding his authority for the charge. 
This was answered, and General Jackson's was the name given as 
his authority. Mr. Clay sent his friend, General Leslie Combs, 
with a note to Jackson, with a copy of Creemer's communication. 
Combs was a weak, vain man, and so full of the importance of his 
mission that he made no secret of his object in visiting Jackson at 
the Hermitage ; and it was soon running through the country in the 
party press, each retailing the story as he had heard it, or as his 
imagination and party bias desired it. It was soon current that Mr. 
Clay had challenged General Jackson, and a duel was soon to occur 
between these distinguished men. General Jackson, however, gavcj 
as his author, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. In turn, Mr. 
Buchanan was called upon by Clay, but he denied ever having made 
any such communication to General Jackson ; at the same time, 
making certain statements under the seal of secrecy to Mr. Letcher,! 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 47 

Clay's friend. What these revelations were will never be known : 
death has set his seal on all who knew them ; and no revelation 
disclosed them in time. Long after this interview between Letcher 
and Buchanan, the former called on the latter, and asked to be 
relieved from this imputation, and for permission to give to the 
public these statements ; but Mr. Buchanan peremptorily refused. 
Mr. Letcher insisted that they were important to the reputation of 
more than Mr. Clay: still Buchanan refused; and to this day the 
question of veracity remains unsettled between Jackson and Bu- 
chanan. The public have, however, long since declared that General 
Jackson was too brave a man to lie. 

Toward the close of Mr. Clay's life, one Carter Beverly, of Vir- 
ginia, wrote Mr. Clay some account of the part he himself had 
taken in the concoction of this slander, craving his forgiveness. 
This letter was received by Mr. Clay while a visitor at the home of 
the writer, and read to him : it dissipated all doubts upon the mind 
of Mr. Clay, if any remained, of the fact of the whole story being 
the concoction of Buchanan. Creemer was a colleague of Buchanan, 
and was a credulous Pennsylvanian, of Dutch descent ; honest enough, 
but without brains, and only too willing to be the instrument of his 
colleague in any dirty work which would subserve his purposes. 

Beverly was one of those silly but presumptuous personages who 
thrust themselves upon the society of men occupying high positions, 
and feel their importance only in that reflected by this association ; 
and ever too fond of being made the medium of slanderous reports, 
reflecting upon those whose self-respect and superior dignity has 
frowned them from their presence. Creemer died without divulg- 
ing anything; probably under the influence of Buchanan, and it is 
not improbable he was in ignorance of the origin of the slander. 
Beverly knew of its utter falsity, and was as guilty as the originator, 
and hi# conscience smote him too sorely to permit him to go to the 
grave without atonement, and consequently he made a clean breast 
of it to Mr. Clay. 

Mr. Clay and Mr. Buchanan entered public life about the same 
time, when they were both young and full of zeal. They belonged 
to the same political party, and became warmly attached. They 
were, however, men of very different temperaments. The profes- 
sions of Mr. Clay were always sincere, his love of truth was a most 
prominent feature in his nature, and his attachments were never dis- 



48 THE MEMORIES OF 

simulations : to no other person of his early political friends was he 
more sincerely attached than to Buchanan — he was his confidential 
friend ; he was never on any subject reserved to him ; and so deep 
was this feeling with him that he had called a son after his friend 
— the late James Buchanan Clay. When he learned that all his con- 
fidences had been misplaced, and that the man whom he so loved 
had sought to rob him of his good name, he was wounded to the 
heart. He struggled to believe Buchanan was wronged by General 
Jackson ; but one fact after another was developed — he could not 
doubt — all pointing the same way; and finally came this letter of 
Beverly's, when he was old, and when his heart was crushed by the 
loss of his son Henry at Buena Vista, of which event he had only 
heard the day before : he doubted no more. I shall ever remem- 
ber the expression of that noble countenance as, turning to me, he 
said: "Read that!" Rising from his seat, he went to the gar- 
den, where, under a large live-oak, I found him an hour after, 
deeply depressed. It was sorrow, not anger, that weighed upon him. 
In reply to a remark from me, he said : 

' ' How few men have I found true under all trials ! Who has a 
friend on whom he can rely, and who will not, to gratify his own 
ambition, sacrifice him ? I was deeply attached to Buchanan ; I 
thought him my friend, and trusted him as such — through long yeans 
our intimacy continued. You see how unwisely this attachment was 
indulged ; I have misplaced my confidence ; I am willing to dis- 
believe this statement of Beverly ; he is known to you ; I believe he 
is a miserable creature, but his testimony is but a link in the chain 
of evidences I have of Buchanan's being the author of this infamous 
story. It was artfully concocted and maliciously circulated. He 
was too shrewd to commit himself, and employed this creature to go 
to Jackson, who lent a willing ear to it ; and he communicated it to 
Creemer. Yet it was settled upon him by Jackson. Beverly toW 
Jackson he was sent by Buchanan, and now the world has the story 
denied by Buchanan, and I have it confessed by Beverly. All the 
mischief it could do, it has done ; and this death-bed repentance 
and confession must command my forgiveness of poor old Beverly. 

" I was not unaware of the hazards of accepting office under Mr. 
Adams, and yielded my judgment to gratify my friends. I was 
deeply solicitous of rendering the country independent : our popu- 
lation was increasing ; I was sure large immigration would add to 



II 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 49 

the natural incre;ise ; and I felt it was the true policy of the Govern- 
ment to commence the manufacture of all articles necessary to its 
population, and especially the articles of prime necessity, iron and 
clothing. We had the minerals, the coal, and the cotton; and the 
sad experience of the recent war warned us to prepare against the 
same consequences should we unfortunately be again in a similar 
condition. I was satisfied that this policy would meet powerful 
opposition by those who supposed their interests affected by protec- 
tion ; and I knew, to build up the manufactures at home, they must 
be protected against foreign competition — at least for a time. Once 
capital was abundant and largely invested in manufacturing, with 
an abundance of educated skill, this protection could be withdrawn ; 
as home protection would not prevent home competition, and high 
prices would stimulate this competition to the point of producing 
more than was necessary for home consumption; which would force 
the manufacturer to find a market abroad for his surplus ; this would 
bring him into competition with the European manufacturer, and he 
would be compelled to be content with the prices he could obtain 
under this competition ; this would necessarily, by degrees, reduce 
prices at home, and finally obviate the necessity of protection. 
Already this has come to pass. The good of the country I thought 
demanded this ; and for this I exerted all my powers and all my 
influence ; never for a moment doubting but that in time and from 
results the whole people would approve the policy. Nor did I ever 
anticipate any political result to my own interest. I have never thought 
of self, in any great measure of policy I may have advocated. I 
have looked to final results in benefits to the country alone, with a 
hope that my name should not be a disgrace to my children, who 
should witness the working and the effect of measures connected 
with my public life. With an honest purpose, I feared no conse- 
quences; and desiring, above temporary popularity, the good of 
the country, I assumed all the hazards and consequences which my 
enemies could torture out of the act of accepting office under Mr. 
Adams. I have never regretted it, and have lived to see the slan- 
derers of my fame rebuked by the whole country. 

"This terrible Mexican war now raging, I fear, is to result in 
consequences disastrous to our Government. That we shall drive 
Mexico to the wall there cannot be a doubt. We will avail our- 
selves of the conqueror's right in demanding indemnity for the 
5 D 



50 THE MEMORIES OF 

expenses of the war. She has nothing to pay with, but territory. 
We shall dispossess her of at least a third, perhaps the half of her 
domain ; this will open the question of slavery again, and how it is 
to be settled God only knows. For myself, I see no peaceful solu- 
tion of the question. The North and the South are equally fanatical 
upon the subject, and the difficulties of adjustment augmenting 
every day. You will agree with me that the institution violates the 
sentiment of the civilized world. It is unnatural, and must yield to 
the united hostility of the world. But what is to be done with the 
negro? You cannot make a citizen of him, and clothe him with 
political power. This would lead rapidly to a war of races ; and 
of consequence to the extinction of the negro. He will not labor 
without compulsion ; and very soon the country would be filled with 
brigands ; the penitentiaries would not hold the convicts ; and the 
public security would ultimately demand that they should be sent 
from the country. 

"To remove such a number, even to the West Indies, would involve 
an expense beyond the resources of the Government ; to force them 
into Mexico would make her a more dangerous and disagreeable 
neighbor than she is ; besides, this would only be postponing the 
evil, for I apprehend we shall want to annex all of Mexico before 
many years. As I remarked, I can see no peaceful solution of this 
great social evil; but fear it is fraught with fatal consequences to 
our Government." 

John Randolph, soon after the election of Mr. Adams, was sent 
to the United States Senate by Virginia. His enmity to Mr. Clay 
had received a new whetting through the events of the year or two 
just past; and the natural acerbity of his nature was soured into 
bitter malignity. He believed every word of the story of Creemer, 
and harped upon it with the pertinacity of the Venetian upon the 
daughter of Shylock. He was scarcely ever upon the floor that 
some offensive allusion was not made to this subject. It was imma- 
terial to him what the subject-matter was under discussion : he found 
a means to have a throw at the Administration, and of consequence, 
at Clay ; and bargain and corruption slid from his tongue with the 
concentration of venom of the rattlesnake. The very thought of 
Clay seemed to inspire his genius for vituperation ; his eye would 
gleam, his meagre and attenuated form would writhe and contort 
as if under the enchantment of a demon ; his long, bony fingers 



IJ 



FIFTY YEARS. 5I 

would be extended, as if pointing at an imaginary Clay, air-drawn 
as the dagger of Macbeth, as he would writhe the muscles of his 
beardless, sallow, and wrinkled face, pouring out the gall of his soul 
upon his hated enemy. It was in one of these hallucinations that 
he uttered the following morsel of bitterness, in allusion to the 
story of bargain and corruption: "This, until now, unheard-of 
combination of tlje black-leg with the Puritan; this union of Luck />r<A*ir* 
George with Blif^l," (an allusion from Fielding's novel of "Tom 
Jones.") Language could not have been made more offensive. 
But the fruitful imagination of Randolph was not exhausted, and he 
proceeded with denunciation which spared not the venerable mother 
of Mr. Clay, then living — denouncing her" for bringing into the 
world "this being, so brilliant, yet so corrupt, which, like a rotten 
mackerel by moonlight, shined and stunk." 

This drew frorh Mr. Clay a challenge, and a meeting was the 
consequence. There was no injury sustained by either party in this 
conflict, the full particulars of which may be found in Benton's 
" Thirty Years in the Senate ; " and I have Mr. Clay's authority for 
saying that this account is strictly correct. 

In General Jackson's letter to Carter Beverly, he states that 
Buchanan came to him and stated that the friends of Mr Adams had 
made overtures to Mr. Clay, to the effect that, if Mr. Clay would 
with his friends support Mr. Adams, and he should be elected, then 
he would appoint Clay to the position of Secretary of State ; and 
that Buchanan recommended Jackson to intrigue against this intrigue. 

Buchanan denied the statement in toto. Beverly wrote a letter, in 
1841, admitting the falsehood of a former letter of his; and"-again, 
another to Mr. Clay, in 1844 or 1845, asking Clay's forgiveness for 
the part he had acted in the matter. 



52 THE MEMORIES OF 

CHAPTER V. 

Georgia's noble sons. 

A Minister of a Day — Purity of Administration — Then and Now — 
Widow TiMBERLAKE — Van Buren's Letter — Ambrister and Arbuth- 
NOT — Old Hickory Settles a Difficulty — A Cause of the late War 
— Honored Dead. 

IMMEDIATELY upon the inauguration of Mr. Adams, Mr. 
Crawford left Washington, and returned home. His residence 
was near Lexington, Georgia, upon a small farm. It was an unosten- 
tatious home, but comfortable, and without pretensions superior to 
those of his more humble neighbors. Mr. Crawford had held many- 
positions in the service of the country, and had honestly and ably 
discharged the duties of these for the public good. As a senator 
in Congress, he won the confidence of the nation by the display of 
great abilities ; and gave universal satisfaction of the pure patriotism 
of his heart, in all he said, or did. He was distinguished, as minister 
to France, for his open candor and simplicity of manners — so much 
so, as to cause Napoleon to remark of him "that no Government 
but a republic could create or foster so much truth and honest 
simplicity of character as he found in Mr. Crawford." 

For years, he had served the nation as financial minister, and at a 
time when the method of keeping, transferring, and disbursing the 
moneys of Government afforded infinite opportunities for peculation 
— when vast amounts of money arising from the sale of the public 
domain in the West and the South was under his control, and when 
he had the selection of the depositories of this, and when these 
deposits were of great value to the local or State banks, so that they 
would have paid handsomely for them ; yet this noble being came 
out of the furnace without the smell of fire upon his garments. 

There was but one man who ever imputed dishonesty to him, or 
selfish motives in any act. When the claims of Mr. Adams and 
Mr. Crawford for the Presidency were being discussed, and party 
asperity sought to slay its victims, Ninian Edwards, a senator of 
Congress from Illinois, charged Mr. Crawford with impropriety 
of conduct in depositing, for selfish and dishonest purposes, the 



FIFTV YEARS. 53 

public moneys arising from the sale of lands in Illinois, in banks 
notoriously insolvent. Edwards had been appointed minister to 
Mexico, had left the Senate, and had gone to his home, preparatory 
to his leaving for Mexico; and from his home made this attack 
upon Mr. Crawford. The son-in-law of Edwards, a man named 
Cook, was the representative in Congress from Illinois, and, if I 
remember correctly, was the only representative who at the time 
reiterated these charges from his seat. Mr. Crawford immediately 
demanded an investigation of his conduct. This was had, and the 
result was a triumphant acquittal from all blame ; and so damaging 
was this investigation to Edwards that the President recalled the 
commission of Edwards as minister to Mexico, and appointed Joel 
R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, in his stead. Edwards was at New- 
Orleans when the letter of recall from the President reached him, 
that far on his way to Mexico : he returned in disgrace, and soon 
faded from public notice forever. At the time, it was asserted he 
was the brother-in-law of Mr. Adams, and knowing that some of 
the banks in which Crawford had deposited the public treasure 
had failed, he imagined complicity of a dishonest character, on the 
part of Crawford, with the officers of the banks, and expected to 
injure him and subserve the interest of Adams. In what contrast 
does this transaction place the purity of the Government, as then 
administered, with its conduct of to-day, and how peerless were those 
who were trusted then with public confidence and high places, in 
comparison with the public men who fill their places now ! 

Georgia has given to the nation two Secretaries of the Treasury — 
William H. Crawford and Howell Cobb ; they were citizens of 
adjoining counties. Cobb was born within a few miles of Craw- 
ford's grave. They were both administering the office at a time in 
the history of the nation when she was surrounded with perils. The 
one, when she was just coming out of a war with the most power- 
ful nation on earth ; the other, when she was just going into a war, 
civil and gigantic. Both w^ere afforded every opportunity for dis- 
honest peculation, and both came out, despite the allurements of 
temptation, with clean hands and untainted reputation. They were 
reared and lived in the atnK>sphere of honesty; they sought the 
inspiration from the hills and vales, blue skies, and clear pure 
waters of Middle Georgia. The surroundings of nature were pure ; 
the honest farmers and mechanics, her professional men and mer- 
5* 



54 THE MEMORIES OF 

chants, were and are pure. It was the home of Upson, Gilmer, 
Thomas W. Cobb, Peter Early, Eli S. Sherter, Stephen Willis 
Harris, William Causby Dawson, Joseph Henry Lumpkin ; and now 
is the home of A. H. Stephens, Ben. Hill, Robert Toombs, Bishop 
Pierce, and his great and glorious father, and in their integrity and 
lofty manhood they imitate the mighty dead who sleep around 
them. 

Glorious old State ! though long trodden with the tyrant's foot, 
there is a resurrectionary spirit moving thy people, which will lift 
thee again to the high pinnacle from which thou wast thrust, purified 
and reinvigorated for a career of brighter glory than thou hast yet 
known — when the men who plague you now shall be driven from 
your State, and the sons of your soil, in the vigor of their souls, 
undefiled and untrammelled, shall wield your destinies. 

Like a Roman of latter days, Mr. Crawford retired from the ser- 
vice of his country poorer than- when he entered it. There was 
sweet seclusion in his retreat, and honest hearts in his humble neigh- 
bors to receive him with " Come home, thou good and faithful ser- 
vant ; we receive thee, as we gave thee, in thy greatness and thy 
goodness, undefiled." He had only partially recovered from his 
paralysis, though his general health was much improved ; rest and 
retirement, and release from public duties and cares, served to rein- 
vigorate him greatly. His estate was small, his family large, and 
his friends, to aid him, secured his election to the bench of the Supe- 
rior Court, the duties of which he continued to discharge until his 
death. He survived to see General Jackson elected President, to 
whom he gave a cordial support. Mr. Calhoun had been nomi- 
nated and elected Vice-President with General Jackson, both with 
overwhelming majorities. Crawford had carried all his strength to 
the support of the ticket, and the friends of Crawford and Calhoun 
were found acting in concert, notwithstanding the hostility yet unap- 
peased between their chiefs. It was the union of necessity, not of 
sympathy or affection. At this juncture, there was perhaps as cor- 
dial a hatred between the people of South Carolina and those of 
Georgia, as ever existed betwen the Greek and the Turk. 

Mr. Calhoun, it seemed now to be settled, was to be the successor 
of General Jackson. The new parties were organized, and that 
headed by General Jackson assumed the name of Democrat, and 
now held undisputed control of more than two-thirds of the States. 



FIFTY YEARS. 55 

Mr. Calhoun had broken away from the usage of former Vice-Presi- 
dents, which was to retire, and permit a president of the Senate 
pro tern, to be chosen to preside over the deliberations of that body. 
He determined to fulfil the duties assigned by the Constitution, and 
in person to preside. His transcendent abilities and great strength 
of character by this course was constantly kept before the nation. 
His manners and presence gave increased dignity and importance to 
the office, daily increasing his popularity with the Senate and the 
nation. His position was an enviable one, and was such as seemed 
to promise the power to grasp, at the proper time, the goal of his 
ambition, the Presidency of the republic. 

From the commencement of General Jackson's Administration 
there was a powerful opposition organized. It consisted of the very 
best talent in the Senate and House. The Cabinet was a weak one. 
Mr. Van Buren was premier, or Secretary of State, with John H. 
Eaton, a very ordinary man, Secretary of War; Branch, Secretary 
of the Navy, and Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury ; with John 
M. Berrien, Attorney-General. Eaton was from Tennessee, and was 
an especial favorite of General Jackson. He had been in the Senate 
from Tennessee, and had formed at Washington the acquaintance 
of a celebrated widow of a purser in the navy, Mrs. Timberlake. 
This woman had by no means an enviable reputation, and had been 
supposed the mistress of Eaton, prior to their marriage. She had 
found her way to the heart of Jackson, who assumed to be her espe- 
cial champion. The ladies of the Cabinet ministers refused to 
recognize her or to interchange social civilities with her. This 
enraged the President, and it was made a sine qua non, receive Mrs. 
Eaton, or quit the Cabinet. Van Buren was a widower, and did not 
come under the order. He saw the storm coming, and, to avoid 
consequences of any sort, after consultation with Jackson, resigned. 
His letter of resignation is a literary as well as a political curiosity. 
Gqneral Jackson, it is 6aid, handed it to Forsyth, with the remark 
"that he could not make head or tail of it; and, by the eternal, Mr. 
Forsyth, I do not believe Van Buren can himself." This was the 
forerunner of a general dismissal of the entire Cabinet, save Eaton, 
who resigned. This rupture startled the whole nation, but nothing 
Jackson could do, seemed capable of affecting his growing popular- 
ity. A new Cabinet was organized, and soon after Mr. Van Buren 
was sent minister to England, and Eaton minister to Spain. 



56 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

The opposition were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay 
and Webster. These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and 
Wright: the wrestle was that of giants. The world, perhaps^ never 
furnished a more adroit debater than John Forsyth. He was the 
Ajax Telemon of his party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the 
estimation of that party. He hated Calhoun, and at times was at 
no pains to conceal it in debate. In the warmth of debate, upon 
one occasion, he alluded in severe terms, to the manner in which 
Mr. Crawford had been treated, during his incumbency as Secretary 
of the Treasury, by a certain party press in the interest of Mr. Cal- 
houn. This touched the Vice-President on the raw : thus stung, he 
turned and demanded if the senator alluded to him. Forsyth's 
manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce : turning from the 
Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the imperiousness 
of an emperor: "By what right does the Chair ask that question 
of me?" and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely gleaming 
eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun. The power was with the 
speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence. Slowly turning to 
the Senate, every member of which manifested deep feeling, he 
continued, as his person seemed to swell into gigantic proportions, 
and his eye to sweep the entire chamber, "Let the galled jade 
wince, our withers are unwrung," and went on with the debate. 

The cause of the animosity of Jackson toward Crawford was a 
report which had reached Jackson, that Crawford, as a member of 
Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, had insisted in Cabinet meeting upon the 
arrest of Jackson for a violation of national law, in entering with- 
out orders, as the commanding general of the army of the United 
States, the territory of a friendly power, and seizing its principal 
city by military force. General Jackson had entered Florida, then 
a dependency of Spain, with which power we were in amity, and 
seized Pensacola. 

A band of desperate men had made a lodgment in Florida, 
headed by two Scotchmen, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These men 
had acquired great influence with the Indians, and were stimulating 
them to constant depredations upon the frontier people of Georgia. 
When pursued, they sought safety in the territorial limits of Florida, 
Remonstrances with the Government of Spain had produced no 
effect. It could not, or would not expel them, or attempt any control 
of the Indians ; and it became necessary to put a stop to their aggres- 



I 



FIFTY YEARS. 57 

sions. Jackson commanded, and was the very man for such a work. 
He placed before the President the difficulties, but said he could 
and would break up this nest of freebooters, if he had authority 
from the President to enter the territory, and, if necessary, take pos- 
session of it. It would be an act of war to authorize this course, he 
knew; but he was prepared for the responsibility (he generally was.) 
"I do not ask for formal orders: simply say to me, 'Do it.' Tell 
Johnny Ray to say so to me, and it shall be done." Johnny Ray was 
a member of Congress at that time from East Tennessee, and devoted 
to Jackson. This was done, and the work was accomplished. The 
two leaders were captured and summarily executed, claiming to be 
British subjects. 

Mr. Monroe in some things was a weak man ; he was surrounded 
by a Cabinet greatly superior to himself; he had not counselled with 
them, and he feared the responsibility he had assumed would not be 
sanctioned or approved by his constitutional advisers, and he timidly 
shrank from communicating these secret instructions to them. The 
matter was brought before the Cabinet, by a remonstrance from the 
Spanish Government, in the person of her representative at Wash- 
ington. In the discussion which arose, a motion was submitted to 
arrest and court-martial Jackson. Calhoun was indignant that as 
Secretary of War he had not been consulted. General Jackson 
was sent for, and very soon the matter was quieted, and Spain satis- 
fied. 

It was in this discussion, or Cabinet meeting, that Mr. Crawford 
was represented to General Jackson as moving his arrest. Mr. 
Adams defended Jackson most strenuously, and it is not improbable 
that the President may have informed him, sub rosa, of what had 
been communicated to Jackson. The intimacy between Mr. Monroe 
and Mr. Adams was close, and it was thought he preferred him, and 
gave him more unreservedly his confidence than any of his ministers. 

I believe it was in the early part of the year 1829, or 1830, (I have, 
where I write, no means of reference, and will not pretend to great 
accuracy in dates,) when Mr. Crawford received a visit from Mr. Van 
Buren, and his friend, Mr. Cambreling, at his home in Oglethorpe. 
What transpired during that visit, I do not pretend to know ; but 
soon after, Mr. Forsyth received a letter from Mr. James Hamilton, 
of New York, making certain inquiries with regard to this move in 
Mr. Monroe's Cabinet. Mr. Forsyth appealed to Mr. Crawford, 



58 THEMEMORIESOF 

who responded, and in detail revealed the proceedings in council 
upon this matter, charging, without equivocation, Mr. Calhoun as 
being the secretary who had moved the arrest and trial of Jackson. 
At the time of this development, General Jackson was absent from 
Washington, on a visit to his home in Tennessee, and Mr. Calhoun 
was in South Carolina. A correspondence ensued between the 
President and Vice-President of the most acrimonious character, 
Mr. Calhoun denied in toto the charge. Mr. Crawford appealed 
to the members of the Cabinet, Adams and Crowninshield, who sus- 
tained the truth of Mr. Crawford's statements, and Mr. Calhoun clearly 
implicated himself, by accusing Crawford of a breach of honor in 
disclosing cabinet secrets. It is not my purpose to enter into the 
minutiae of this affair, further than to show the part taken in it by 
Mr. Crawford. Mr. Van Buren did not appear in this imbroglio ; 
he doubtless had his agency, as his interest, in bringing this matter to 
General Jackson's knowledge. Mr. Calhoun was identified with the 
popularity of Jackson and his party, and was now, by common con- 
sent of that party, the prominent man for the presidential succession. 
Mr. Van Buren had been the Secretary of State of General Jackson, 
had studied him well, and knew him well. He knew also the temper 
of the Democratic party : through his agency the political morality 
of New York politicians had permeated the Democracy from one 
end of the country to the other: the doctrine subsequently enunciated 
by Mr. Marcy, that "to the victors belonged the spoils," was in 
full operation throughout the nation as the Democratic practice. 
This was the cement which closely held the politician to party fealty. 
Jackson rewarded his friends, and punished his enemies ; Jackson 
was an omnipotent power ; Jackson was the Democratic party. To 
secure his friendship was necessary to success ; to incur his enmity, 
certain destruction. Van Buren was as artful as ambitious : he had 
indoctrinated Jackson with his own policy, by inducing him to believe 
it was his own ; and the frankness of Jackson's nature prevented 
his believing anything was not what it professed to be. It was the 
ambition of Van Buren to be President, and his sagacity taught him 
the surest means to effect this end was to secure effectually and 
beyond peradventure the friendship and support of Jackson. Mr. 
Calhoun was between him and the aim of his ambition : to thrust him 
from Jackson's confidence was to effect all he desired. This was done ; 
the breach was irreparable. Van Buren was sent, in the interim of 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 59 

the session of Congress, minister plenipotentiary to the Court of 
St. James. 

Mr. Clay had come back into the Senate, and was heading and 
leading an opposition, then in the majority in the Senate ; and the 
nomination of Van Buren was rejected. Jackson, assured that Cal- 
houn had deceived him, was bitter in his denunciations of him, and 
Calhoun was sympathizing with this opposition. Jackson denounced 
Calhoun as his informant of Crawford being the Cabinet minister 
who had in Cabinet council moved his arrest. Calhoun gave the 
lie direct to the assertion ; and that Jackson was capable of lying, 
referred as evidence to his statements relative to the charge of bar- 
gain and intrigue against Mr. Clay. But enough had been done to 
crush out the popularity and the hopes of Calhoun, beyond the 
limits of South Carolina. There never has been so sudden and so 
terrible a fall from such a height of any man in this nation — not 
excepting that of Aaron Burr. John C. Calhoun, in talent, learn- 
ing, and statesmanship, was greatly superior to Jackson, and unsur- 
passed by any man of the age. But the breath of Jackson was the 
blight which withered his laurels, and crushed his prospects, and de- 
stroyed his usefulness forever, in a night. 

What consequences have grown out of this quarrel, I leave for the 
pen of the historian. Yet I cannot forbear the speculation that the 
late and most disastrous war was one, and of consequence the 
ruin and desolation of the South, and the threatened destruction of 
the Government at this time. The agitation which led to these ter- 
rible consequences, commenced with Mr. Calhoun immediately sub- 
sequent to these events. Does any man suppose, if Mr. Calhoun had 
succeeded to the Presidency, that he would have commenced or 
continued this agitation ? For one, I do "hot. The measur° of his 
ambition would have been full : his fame would have been a chapter 
in the history of his country — his talents employed in the adminis- 
tration of the Government, the honor and boast of her people, and 
her preservation and prosperity the enduring monument of his fame 
and glory. But, wronged as he believed, disappointed as he knew, 
he put forth all his strength, and, Samson-like, pulled down the pil- 
lars of her support; and, disunited, crushed, and miserable, she is a 
melancholy spectacle to the patriot, and in her desolation a monu- 
ment of disappointed ambition. 

That Mr. Calhoun anticipated any such results, I do not believe. 



60 THEMEMORIESOF 

To suppose he desired them, and to the end of his life labored to 
produce them, would be to suppose him little less than a fiend. 
Blinded by his prejudices and the hatred natural toward those who 
had accomplished his political ruin, he could not calmly and dis- 
passionately weigh the influence of his acts upon the future of his 
country. 

Mr. Crawford was now rapidly declining, his nervous system was 
completely undermined, and he felt the approach of death calmly 
and without fear. Still, he continued to give his attention to busi- 
ness, and was sufficiently strong to go abroad to calls of duty. In 
one of these journeys he stopped to spend the night in the house of a 
friend, and was found dead in his bed in the morning, after a quiet 
and social evening with his friend and family. 

William Holt Crawford was a native of Virginia : his family were 
Scotch, and came early to the United States, and have been remark- 
able for their talents and energy. Since the Revolution, there has 
scarcely been a time that some one of the family has not been prom- 
inently before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford 
was an eminent type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent tempera- 
ment, full of dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple 
in his habits, disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish dis- 
play — strictly moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his 
hatred, his sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one 
or the other without abundant cause. He was never known to desert 
a friend or shrink from a foe. In form and person he was very 
imposing ; six feet two inches in height ; his head was large, fore- 
head high and broad ; his eyes were blue and brilliant, and, when 
excited, very piercing. His complexion was fair, and, in early life, 
ruddy; he was, when yourfg, exceedingly temperate in his habits, but 
as he advanced in years he indulged too freely in the luxuries of the 
table, and his physicians attributed mainly to this cause his attack of 
paralysis, which ultimately destroyed him. His mind had been very 
much excited during the Presidential canvass; the attacks of his 
enemies were fierce and merciless, and very irritating to him ; and 
this doubtless had much to do with it. He lies buried in the garden 
of his home, without a stone to mark the spot. It is a reproach to 
the people of Georgia that her most eminent son should be neglected 
to sleep in an undistinguished grave. But this neglect does not 
extend alone to Mr. Crawford. I believe, of all her distinguished 



I 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 6l 

men, James A. Meriwether is the only one whose grave has been 
honored with a monumental stone by the State. Crawford, Cobb, 
Dooly, Jackson, Troup, Forsyth, Campbell, Lumpkin, Dawson, 
Walker, Colquitt, Berrien, Daugherty, and many others who have 
done the State some service and much honor, are distinguished in 
their graves only by the green sod which covers them. 



CHAPTER VI. 

POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS. 

A Frugal People — Laws and Religion — Father Pierce — Thomas W. 
Cobb — Requisites of a Political Candidate — A Farmer-Lawyer — 
Southern Humorists. 

THE plain republican habits which characterized the people of 
Upper Georgia, in her early settlement and growth, together 
with the fact of the very moderate means of her people, exercised 
a powerful influence in the formation of the character of her people. 
She had no large commercial city, and her commerce was confined 
to the simple disposal of the surplus products of her soil and the 
supply of the few wants of the people. It was a cardinal virtue to 
provide every thing possible of the absolute necessaries of life at 
home. The provision crop was of first necessity, and secured the 
first attention pf the farmer ; the market crop was ever secondary, 
and was only looked to, to supply those necessaries which could not 
be grown upon the plantation. These were salt, iron, and steel, first; 
and then, if there remained unexhausted some of the proceeds of the 
crop, a small (always a small) supply of sugar and coffee ; and for 
rare occasions, a little tea. 

The population, with the exception of mechanics, and these were 
a very small proportion, arid the few professional men and country 
merchants, was entirely agricultural. This rural pursuit confined at 
home and closely to business every one ; and popular meetings were 
confined to religious gatherings on Sunday in each neighborhood, 
and the meeting of a few who could spare the time at court, in the 
6 



62 THEME MORIESOF 

village county-seat, twice a year. There were no places of public 
resort for dissipation or amusement ; a stern morality was demanded 
by public opinion of the older members of society. Example and 
the switch enforced it with the children. Perhaps in no country or 
community was the maxim of good old Solomon more universally 
practised upon, " Spare the rod and spoil the child," than in Mid- 
dle Georgia, fifty years ago. Filial obedience and deference to age 
was the first lesson. " Honor thy father and mother, that thy days 
may be long in the land," was familiar to the ears of every child 
before they could lisp their a, b, c ; and upon the first demonstration 
of a refractory disobedience, a severe punishment taught them that 
the law was absolute and inexorable. To lie, or touch what was not 
his own, was beyond the pale of pardon, or mercy, and a solitary 
aberration was a stain for life. 

The mothers, clad in homespun, were chaste in thought and action ; 
unlettered and ignorant, but pure as ether. Their literature confined 
to the Bible, its maxims directed their conduct, and were the daily 
lesson of their children. The hard-shell Baptist was the domi- 
nant religion ; with here and there a Presbyterian community, gene- 
rally characterized by superior education and intelligence, with a 
preacher of so much learning as to be an oracle throughout the 
land. 

The Methodists were just then beginning to grow into importance, 
and their circuit-riders, now fashionably known as itinerants, were 
passing and preaching, and establishing societies to mark their suc- 
cess, through all the rude settlements of the State. These were 
the pioneers of that truly democratic sect, as of the stern morality 
and upright bearing which had so powerful an influence over the 
then rising population. 

It is more than sixty years since I first listened to a Methodist 
sermon. It was preached by a young, spare man, with sallow com- 
plexion, and black eyes and hair. I remember the gleam of his eye, 
and the deep, startling tones of his voice — his earnest and fervent 
manner ; and only yesterday, in the Baronne Street (New Orleans) 
Methodist Church, I listened to an old man, upward of eighty years 
of age, preaching the ordination sermon of four new bishops of the 
Methodist Church. It was he to whom I had first listened: the eye 
was still brilliant, the face still sallow, but wrinkled now, and the 
voice and manner still fervent and earnest ; and the great mind, 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 63 

though not the same, still powerful. It was that venerable, good 
man, Lovie Pierce, the father of the great and eloquent bishop. 
What has he not seen ? what changes, what trials, what triumphs ! 
Generations before his eyes have passed into eternity ; the little 
handful of Methodist communicants grown into a mighty and intel- 
ligent body ; thousands of ministers are heralding her tenets all over 
the Protestant world — mighty in learning, mighty in eloquence — 
yet none surpass the eloquence, the power, and the purity of Lovie 
Pierce. 

When I first heard him, Bishop Asbury, William Russell, and he 
were nursing the seed sown by John Wesley and George Whitefield, 
a little while before, upon the soil of Georgia. All but Pierce have 
long been gathered to their fathers, and have rest from their labors. 
He still remains, bearing his cross in triumph, and still preaching the 
Redeemer to the grandchildren of those who first welcomed him 
and united with him in the good work of his mission. How much 
his labors have done to form and give tone to the character of 
the people of the State of Georgia, none may say ; but under his 
'eye and aid has arisen a system of female education, which has and 
is working wonders throughout the State. He has seen the ignorant 
and untaught mothers rear up virtuous, educated, and accomplished 
daughters ; and, in turn, these rearing daughters and sons, an orna- 
ment and an honor to parents and country. Above all, he has seen 
and sees a standard of intelligence, high-breeding, and piety per- 
vading the entire State. The log-cabin gives way to the comfortable 
mansion, the broad fields usurping the forest's claim, and the beau- 
tiful church-building pointing its taper spire up to heaven, where 
stood the rude log-house, and where first he preached. He has lived 
on and watched this grov/ing moral and physical beauty, whose 
germs he planted, and whose fruits he is now enjoying in the eighty- 
fourth year of his age, still zealous, still ardent and eloquent, and a 
power in the land. Should these lines ever meet his eye, he will 
know that the child whose head he stroked as he sat upon his knee 
— the youth whom he warned and counselled, loves him yet, now 
that he is wrinkled, old, and gray. 

From parents such as I have described, and under the teaching of 
such men, grew up the remarkable men who have shed such lustre 
upon the State of Georgia. 

The great distinguishing feature of these men was that of the 



64 THEMEMORIESOF 

masses of her people — stern honesty. Many families have been 
and continue to be remarkable for their superior talents and high 
character ; preserving in a high degree the prestige of names made 
famous by illustrious ancestry. The Crawfords, the Cobbs, and the 
Lamars are perhaps the most remarkable. 

Thomas W. Cobb, so long distinguished in the councils of the 
nation, and as an able and honest jurist in Georgia, was the son 
of John Cobb, and grandson of Thomas Cobb, of the County of 
Columbia, m the State of Georgia. His grandfather emigrated 
from Virginia at an early day, when Georgia was comparatively a 
wilderness, and selecting this point, located with a large family, 
which through his remarkable energy he reared and respectably 
educated. This was an achievement, as the facilities for education 
were so few and difficult as to make it next to impossible to edu- 
cate even tolerably the youth of that day. This remarkable man 
lived to see his grandson, Thomas W. Cobb, among the most dis- 
tinguished men of the State. He died at the great age of one hun- 
dred and fifteen years, at the home of his selection, in Columbia 
County, the patriarch pioneer of the country, surrounded by every 
comfort, and a family honoring his name and perpetuating his vir- 
tues ; and after he had seen the rude forest give way to the culti- 
vated field, and the almost as rude population to the cultivated and 
intellectual people distingiiishing that county. 

Thomas W. Cobb, in his education, suffered the penalties imposed 
in this particular by a new country ; his opportunities, however, were 
improved to their greatest possible extent, and he continued to 
improve in learning to the day of his death. In boyhood he 
ploughed by day, and studied his spelling-book and arithmetic by 
night — lighting his vision to the pursuit of knowledge by a pine-knot 
fire. This ambition of learning, with close application, soon dis- 
tinguished him above the youth of the neighborhood, and lifted 
his aspirations to an equal distinction among the first men of the 
land. He made known his wishes to his father, and was laughed at; 
but he was his grandfather's namesake and pet, and he encouraged 
his ambition. The consequence was that young Cobb was sent to 
the office of William H. Crawford at Lexington, to read law. He 
applied himself diligently, and won the respect and confidence of 
Mr. Crawford, which he retained to the day of his death. When 
admitted to the bar, he located with his fellow-student in Lexing- 



I, 



F I F T V YEARS. 65 

ton; thus taking the place of Mr. Crawford, who was now in polit- 
ical life. He rose rapidly in his profession, and while yet a young 
man was sent to Congress as one of the representatives of the State. 

At this time the representation in Congress was chosen by general 
ticket. The consequence was the selection of men of superior 
talent and character: none could aspire to the high position whose 
names had not become familiar for services to the State, or for the 
display of talent and character at the bar, or other conspicuous posi- 
tions, their virtues and attainments distinguishing them above their 
fellow-men of the country. Throughout the State, to such men 
there was great deference, and the instances were rare where it was 
not deserved. The discipline and trickery of party was unknown, 
nor was it possible that these could exist among a people who, uni- 
versally, honestly desired and labored to be represented by their 
best men. To attain to the high position of senator or 'representa- 
tive in Congress was so distinguishing a mark of merit, that it oper- 
ated powerfully upon the ambitious young men of the State, all of 
whom struggled to attain it by laboring to deserve it. 

The standard of talent established by Crawford, Jackson, and 
Baldwin was so high, that to have public opinion institute a com- 
parison between these and an aspirant was a sure passport to public 
favor; and this comparison was in no instance so likely to be made as 
between him and the pupils of his teaching. This fact in relation to 
Jackson and Crawford is remembered well by the writer. 

In the low country of Georgia, the fiat of James Jackson fixed 
the political fate of every young aspirant. In the up-country, Craw- 
ford was as potent. In Crawford's office the student was required 
to apply himself diligently, and give promise of abilities, or he could 
not remain. The writer remembers to have heard the question asked 
of Mr. Crawford, in his later days, why a family in his own county, 
distinguished for wealth, had uniformly op;;osed him politically. In 
the frankness of his nature he said : "Aleck came, when a young man, 
t') read law in my office, and though he was diligent enough, he was 
without the brain necessary to acquire a proper knowledge of the 
law. I liked his father, and in reply to an inquiry of his relative, 
as to Aleck's capacity, I told him 'his son would doubtless succeed 
as a farmer, for he was industrious ; but he had not sense enough to 

lake a lawyer.' He thanked me ; and Aleck left the office, and, pro- 

ing by my advice, went to the plough, and has made a fortune, and 
6* E 



66 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

a very respectable position for himself; but from that day forward, 
not a member of the family has ever been my friend. I think I did 
my duty, and have got along without their friendship." 

Jackson had his proteges, and they were always marked for talent. 
In early life he discerned the germ of great abilities in two youths of 
Savannah — George M. Troup and Thomas U. D. Charlton. Through 
his influence, these young men, almost as soon as eligible, were sent 
to the Legislature'of the State, and both immediately took high posi- 
tions. Talent was not the only requisite to win and retain the favor 
of Jackson : the man must be honest, and that honesty of such a 
character as placed him above suspicion. 

Under the operation of the Confiscation Act, many who had favored 
the mother country in the Revolutionary struggle had fled with their 
property to Florida. Conspicuous among these was one Campbell 
Wiley, a man of fortune. This man applied to the Legislature to be 
specially exempted from the penalties of this act, and to be per- 
mitted to return to the State. A heated debate ensued, when the 
bill was being considered, in which Charlton was silent, and in which 
Troup made a violent speech in opposition to its passage, ending 
with the sentence, " If ever I find it in my heart to forgive an old 
Tory his sins, I trust my God will never forgive me mine." This 
speech gave him an immediate popularity over the entire State. 
Charlton in secret favored the bill ; but knowing its unpopularity 
with his constituents, he contrived to be called to the chair, and was 
forced to vote on a material motion which was favorable to the bill. 
The wealth of Wiley, and Charlton's equivocation, attached suspicion 
to his motives, and brought down upon him the wrath of Jackson, 
blighting all his future aspirations. As a member of the bar he 
attained eminence, and all his future life was such as to leave no 
doubt of his purity, and the cruel wrong those suspicions, sustained 
by the frown of Jackson, had done him. 

Thomas W. Cobb was eminently social in his nature, and frank to 
a fault ; his opinions were never concealed of men or measures ; and 
these were, though apparently hasty, the honest convictions of his 
judgment, notwithstanding their apparent impulsive and hasty char- 
acter. Like his tutor, Mr. Crawford, he cared little for ceremony 
or show ; and in every thing he was the kernel without the shell : 
his character was marked before his company in five minutes' con- 
versation, whether he had ever met or heard of them before ; and 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 6j 

in all things else he was equally without deceit. This openness to 
some seemed rude ; and his enemies were of this class. He expressed 
as freely his opinion to the person as to the public ; but this was 
always accompanied with a manner which disrobed it of offence. 
But human nature will not in every individual excuse the words 
because of the manner ; and sometimes this peculiarity made him 
sharp enemies. It will be supposed such traits would have rendered 
him unpopular. At this day, when social intercourse is less familiar, 
they certainly would have done so ; but they seemed a means of 
great popularity to Cobb, especially with those who were most inti- 
mate with him, as all who met him were, after an hour's acquaint- 
ance. His public life was as his private, open and sincere; he never 
had a sinister motive, and this relieved him from duplicity of con- 
duct. His talents were of a high order : in debate, he was argu- 
mentative and explicit ; never pretending to any of the arts of the 
orator; but logically pursued his subject to a conclusion; never ver- 
bose, but always perspicuous. As a lawyer, he was well read ; and 
the analytical character of his mind appeared to have been formed 
upon the model of Judge Blackstone. Before the juries of the 
country he was all-powerful. These, in the main, were composed 
of men of very limited information — and especially of legal lore. 
But they were generally men of strong practical sense, with an 
honest purpose of doing justice between man and man. Cobb with 
these was always sincere; never attempting a deception, never seeking 
to sway their judgments and secure a verdict by appealing to their 
passions or their prejudices, or by deceiving them as to what the law 
was. Toward a witness or a party of whose honesty he entertained 
doubts, he was sarcastically severe ; nor was he choice in the use of 
terms. As a statesman, he was wise and able — and in politics, as in 
everything else, honest and patriotic. In early life he was sent to 
the House of Representatives, in the Congress of the United States, 
and soon distinguished himself as a devoted Republican in politics, 
and a warm supporter of the Administration of Mr. Monroe. Here 
he was reunited socially with Mr. Crawford and family, and so close 
was this intimacy that he was on all political measures supposed to 
speak the sentiments of Mr. Crawford. Associated with Forsyth, 
Tatnall, Gilmer, and Cuthbert, all men of superior abilities, all 
belonging to the same political party, and all .warm supporters of 
Mr. Crawford, he led this galaxy of talent — a constellation in the 



>^ 



68 THEMEMORIESOF 

political firmament unsurpassed by the representation of any other 
State. Nor must I forget, in this connection, Joel Crawford and 
William Terrell, men of sterling worth and a high order of talent. 
Mr. Cobb was a man of active business habits, and was very inde- 
pendent in his circumstances : methodical and correct, he never left 
for to-morrow the work of to-day. 

He was transferred from the House to the Senate, and left it with 
a reputation for integrity and talent — the one as brilliant as the other 
unstained — which falls to the lot of few who are so long in public 
life as he was. Unlike most politicians whose career has been through 
exciting political struggles, the blight of slander was never breathed 
upon his name, and it descended to his children, as he received it 
from his ancestry, without spot or blemish. 

Toward the close of his life, he was elected by the Legislature of 
the State to the Bench of the Superior Court, then the highest judi- 
cial tribunal of the State. This was the last public station he filled. 
Here he sustained his high character as a lawyer and honest man ; 
carrying to the tomb the same characteristics of simplicity and sin- 
cerity, of affability and social familiarity, which had ever distinguished 
him in every position, public or private. He assumed none of that 
mock dignity or ascetic reserve in his intercourse with the Bar and 
the people, so characteristic of little minds in elevated positions : 
conscious of rectitude in all things, he never feared this familiarity 
would give cause for the charge of improper bias in his decisions 
from the bench or his influence with the jury. 

Mr. Cobb died at the age of fifty, in the prime of his manhood 
and usefulness. In person,* he was a model for a sculptor — six feet 
in height, straight, and admirably proportioned. His head and face 
were Grecian ; his forehead ample ; his nose beautifully chiselled ; 
gray eyes, with sparkling, playful expression, round, and very beau- 
tiful; his head round, large, and admirably set on; the expression of 
his features, variant as April weather, but always intellectual, they 
invited approach, and the fascination of his conversation chained to 
his presence all who approached him. In fine, he was a type in 
manner and character of the people among whom he was born and 
reared ; and I scarcely know if this is the greater compliment to him 
or them. 

With few exceptions, this peculiar population of Middle Georgia 
has furnished all of her distinguished sons, and to the traits which 



FIFTYYEARS. 69 

make them remarkable is she to-day mainly indebted for her exalted 
prominence among her sister States of the South. The peculiar 
training of her sons, the practical education and social equality 
which pervades, and ever has, her society, acquaints every one with 
the wants of every other ; at the same time it affords the facility for 
union in any public enterprise which promises the public good. All 
alike are infused with the same State pride, and the equality of for- 
tunes prevents the obtrusion of arrogant wealth, demanding control, 
from purely selfish motives, in any public measure. 

This community of interests superinduces unity of feeling, and 
unity of action ; and the same homogeneous education secures a 
healthy public opinion, which, at last, is the great controlling law 
of human action. Thus the soil is one, the cultivation is one, the 
growth is one, and the fruit is the same. Nowhere in the South 
have these been so prominent as in Middle Georgia, and no other 
portion of the South is so distinguished for progress, talent, and high 
moral cultivation. There is, perhaps, wanting that polish of manners, 
that ease and grace of movement, and that quiet delicacy of sup- 
pressed emotion, so peculiar to her citizens of the seaboard, which 
the world calls refinement ; which seems taught to conceal the natu- 
ral under the artistic, and which so frequently refines away the nobler 
and more generous emotions of the heart. I doubt, however, if the 
habit of open and unrestrained expression of the feelings of our 
nature is not a more enduring basis of strong character and vigoroiK 
thought and action, than the cold polish of refined society. What- 
ever is most natural is most enduring. The person unrestrained by 
dress grows into noble and beautiful proportions ; the muscles 
uncramped, develop not only into beauty, but strength and health- 
fulness. So with the mind untrammelled by forms and ceremonies ; 
and so with the soul unfettered by the superstition of vague and 
ridiculous dogmas. The freedom of action and familiarity of lan- 
guage, where there are few social restraints to prevent universal 
intercourse, familiarizes every class of the community with the 
peculiarities of each, and forms an outlet for the wit and humor of 
the whole. This was the stimulant to mirth and hilarity, for which 
no people are so much distinguished as the Georgians of the middle 
country. At the especial period of which I now write, her humorists 
were innumerable. Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Longstreet, Bacon (the 
Ned Brace of Longstreet's Georgia Scenes), and many others of 



76 



THE MEMORIES OF 



lesser note, will long be remembered in the traditions of the people. 
These were all men of eminence, and in their time filled the first 
offices of the State. The quiet, quaint humor of Prince is to be 
seen in his Militia Muster, in the Georgia Scenes; and there too the 
inimitable burlesque of Bacon, in Ned Brace. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WITS AND FIRE-EATERS. 

Judge Dooly — Lawyers and Blacksmiths — John Forsyth — How Juries 
WERE Drawn — Gum-Tree vs. Wooden-Leg — Preacher-Politicians — 
Colonel Gumming — George McDuffie. 

JOHN M. DOOLY was a native of Lincoln County, Georgia, 
where he continued to reside until his death, and where he now 
lies in an undistinguished grave. He was the son of a distin- 
guished Revolutionary soldier, whose name, in consideration of his 
services in that struggle, has been given to a county in the State. In 
early life he united himself to the Federal party, and from honest 
convictions continued a Federalist in principle through life. But for 
his political principles, his name in the nation to-day would have 
been a household word, familiar as the proudest upon her scroll of 
fame. In very early life he gave evidence of extraordinary powers 
of mind. With a limited education, he commenced the study of 
the law when quite young. But despite this serious defect, which 
was coupled with poverty and many other disadvantages incident to 
a new country impoverished by war, and wanting in almost every- 
thing to aid the enterprise of talent in a learned profession, soon 
after his admission to the Bar he attracted the attention of the com- 
munity, and especially the older members of the Bar, as a man of 
extraordinary capacity, and already tramed in the law. So tenacious 
was his memory of all that he read or heard, that he not only 
retained the law, but the author and page where it was to be found. 
His mind was eminently logical and delighted in analytical investiga- 
tion. In truth, the law suited the idiosyncrasy of his mind, and it was 



FIFTYYEARS. 7I 

most fortunate for his future life, that he adopted it as a lifetime 
pursuit. Nature, it seems, gives to every mind a peculiar proclivity, 
as to every individual a peculiar mind : to pursue this proclivity is 
a pleasure; it makes work a delight, and this secures success. Hence 
it is fortunate to learn this peculiarity, and to cultivate it from the 
beginning. When the mind is strong and vigorous, this peculiar 
proclivity is generally well-marked to the inquiring observer in very 
early life. 

It is related of Benjamin West, the great painter, that at five years 
of age he was continually soiling the floor of his good and sensible 
mother with charcoal sketches of the faces of the different mem- 
bers of the family ; and of Napoleon, that in early childhood his 
favorite amusement was to build forts and array his playmates irto 
column, and charge these, and assault and enter them. Stevenson, 
the great engineer, spent all his idle time, when a boy, in attempts at 
constructing machinery and bridges. 

In these great minds this natural trait was so strongly marked, and 
so controlling in its influence, as to defy and overleap every obstacle, 
and develop its wonderful energy and capacity in the most stupendous 
manner. In such as these, this manifestation is early and palpable. 
Yet the same peculiarity exists wherever there is mind sufficient to 
connect cause and eff'ect ; but it is proportionate with the strength of 
the mind, and in ordinary or feeble minds it is less conspicuous, 
and requires close observation to discern it in early life. 

The folly and ambition of parents and adverse circumstances too 
often disappoint the intentions of nature, and compel their offspring, 
or the victims of circumstance, to follow a pursuit for which they 
have a natural aversion, and absolutely no capacity : hence we see 
thousands struggling painfully through life in a hated avocation, and 
witness many a miserable lawyer whom nature designed to be a 
happy blacksmith. His toil of life is always up hill, without the 
jjossibility of ever attaining the summit. Sometimes the rebellion 
of nature is successful, and the misdirected will shake off" the erro- 
neously imposed vocation, and dash away in the pursuit for which 
the mind is capacitated ; and immediate success attests the good 
sense and propriety of the act. 

Fortunately, John M. Dooly selected, under the guidance of 
natural inclination, the profession of law. His eminence was early 
in life, and the public eye was directed to him as one worthy any 



72 THE MEMORIES' OF 

public trust. He was frequently chosen a member of the Legislature 
from his native county, and was distinguished for extraordinary 
ability in the capacity of a legislator. His conspicuous position 
and commanding talents pointed him out as one to take a foremost 
rank with the first of the nation ; and his friends urged his name as 
a fit representative in Congress for the State. At this time the acri- 
mony of party was intense ; the Republican, or Jeffersonian party, 
was largely in the ascendant in the State, and would accept no com- 
promise. It was willing to receive new converts and prefer them 
according to merit, but would accord no favor to an unrepentant 
enemy. At this time there were many young, talented men rising 
to distinction in the State, who were Federalists. With some of them 
ambition was superior to principle ; they recanted their principles, 
and, in the ranks of their former opponents, reaped a harvest of 
political distinction. Prominent among these was John Forsyth. 
He had delivered a Fourth of July oration at Augusta, distinguished 
for great ability and high Federal doctrines. Abraham Baldwin, who, 
with the astuteness of the Yankee — which he was — had renounced 
Federalism, and was now a prominent leader of the Republican 
party, spoke of this effort of Forsyth as transcendently great, and 
always, when doing so, would add: "What a pity such abilities 
should be lost to the country through the influence of mistaken 
political principle I " Whether this had any effect upon the views of 
Forsyth or not, certain it is that very soon after he repudiated 
Federalism, and published a formal renunciation of the party and its 
principles. From that time forward his march was onward, and 
now his name and fame are embalmed as national wealth. 

Dooly was less facile : his convictions were honest and strong, and 
he clung to them. He won the confidence not only of his party, 
but of the people, for high integrity ; but this was all. Out of his 
county he was intrusted with no political position, and those who 
most prized his talents and integrity could never be persuaded to 
aid in giving these to the country. He was more than once beaten 
for the Senate of the United States; and once by Forsyth, who was 
not announced as a candidate, and who was at the time minister 
plenipotentiary of the nation at the Spanish Court. His great legal 
abilities were, however, complimented by the Republican Legisla- 
ture, by placing him upon the bench of the highest judicial tribunal 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 73 

of the State, where his usefuhiess was transcendent, and where most 
of his life was spent. 

As a wit, Dooly never had an equal in the State, and there might 
now be written a volume of his social and judicial wit. Its compass 
was illimitable — from the most refined and delicately pungent to the 
coarsest and most vulgarly broad ; but always pointed and telling. 
Nature had given him a peculiarity of look and voice which gave 
edge to his wit and point to his humor. 

The judicial system of Georgia at this time was peculiar. The 
State was subdivided into districts, or circuits, as they were denom- 
inated ; and one judge appointed to preside over each. These were 
elected by the Legislature, on joint ballot, for a term of three years; 
and until faction claimed the spoils of victory, the judge who Had 
proven himself capable and honest was rarely removed, so long as 
he chose to remain. Dooly was one of these. Party never touched 
him, and both factions concurred in retaining him, because it was 
the universal wish of the people of his circuit. The law of the 
country was the common law of England and the statutes of the 
State. In the expounding of these, the judges frequently differed, 
and the consequence was that each circuit had, in many particulars, 
its own peculiar law, antagonistic to that which was received as law 
in the adjoining circuit. The uniformity of law, so essential to the 
quiet and harmony of a people, and so necessary in defining the 
title and securing the tenure of property, by this system was so 
greatly disturbed, that it led to the informal assembling of the judges 
at irregular periods, and upon their own responsibility, to reconcile 
these discrepancies. This in some degree obviated the necessity of 
a supreme court for the correction of errors ; but was very unsatis- 
factory to the Bar, who were almost universal in their desire for the 
establishment of a tribunal for this purpose. But there was another 
feature peculiar to the judicial system of the State, to which her 
people were greatly attached : that of special juries. They feared 
the creation of a supreme court would abolish this, and for many 
years resisted it. This system of special juries, in the organization 
of her judiciary, was intended to obviate the necessity of a court of 
chancery. The conception was a new one, and in Georgia, with 
her peculiar population, its effects were admirable. It was an honest, 
( ommon-sense adjudication of equity cases, and rendered cheap and 
speedy justice to litigants. It was unknown in the judiciary system 
7 



74 THEMEMORIESOF 

of any other State, and I will be excused by the reader, who may 
not be a Georgian, for a brief description of it here. 

By direction of the law of 1798, the justices of the Inferior Court 
took the tax list, which contained the name of every white man of 
twenty-one years and upwards in the county, and, from this list, 
selected a certain number of names, and placed them in a box marked 
' ' The grand-jury box. ' ' The remaining names were placed in another 
box marked "The petit-jury box." Those selected as grand jurors 
were chosen because of their superior intelligence, wealth, and purity 
of character. These selections were made at certain stated periods ; 
and the jurors thus chosen from the mass never served on the petit 
jury, nor were they liable even as talesmen to serve on that jury. 
The same act made it the duty of the presiding judge of each circuit 
to draw, at the termination of each term of his court, and in open 
court, a certain number of names from each box, which were entered 
as drawn upon the minutes of the court, to serve as grand and petit 
jurors at the ensuing term of the court. The special juries, for the 
trial of cases in equity, and appeals from the verdicts of petit juries, 
were formed from the grand juries, and after the manner following : 
A list was furnished by the clerk of the court to the appellant and 
respondent. From this list each had the right to strike a name alter- 
nately — the appellant having the first stroke — until there remained 
twelve names only. These constituted a special jury, and the oath 
prescribed by law for these jurors was as follows : " You shall well 
and truly try the issue between the parties, and a true verdict give, 
according to law and equity, and the opinion you entertain of the 
testimony." Under the pleadings, the entire history of the case 
went before this jury, and their verdict was final. It was this method 
of trial which prevented so long that great desideratum in all judicial 
systems — a court for the correction of errors and final adjudication 
of cases. 

Dishonest litigants feared this special jury. Their characters, as 
that of their witnesses, passed in review before this jury, whose oaths 
allowed a latitude, enabling them frecjuently to render a verdict, 
ostensibly at variance with the testimony, but almost always in aid 
of the ends of equitable justice. 

The system was eminently promotive of honesty and good morals, 
as well as the ends of justice ; for men's rights before it were not 
unfrequently determined by the reputation they bore in the com- 



FIFTY YEARS. y$ 

munity in which they lived. This fact stimulated uprightness of 
conduct, and often deterred the wrong-doer. It has passed away; 
but I doubt if what has replaced it has benefited the interests or 
morals of the people of the State. 

Like Mr. Crawford, Judge Dooly relied more upon the practical 
good sense of the people as jurors, for justice between man and man, 
than upon the technicalities of the law ; and especially upon that of 
special juries. Dooly had great contempt for petit juries, and evinced 
it upon one occasion by declaring in open court that he thought, if 
there was anything not known to the prescience of the Almighty, it 
was what the verdict of a petit jury would be, when they left the box 
for the jury-room. Dooly was an opponent of Crawford through 
life — a friend and intimate of John Clark, Crawford's greatest enemy. 
But his character was devoid of that bitterness and persistent hatred 
characteristic of these two. Crawford and Judge Tate were intimate 
friends, and between these and Clark there was continual strife. 
Tate and Clark were brothers-in-law ; but this only served to whet 
and give edge to their animosity. Dooly, in some manner, became 
entangled with Tate in this feud ; and an amusing story is told of the 
final settlement of the difficulty between these men. 

Tate, it seems, challenged Dooly to mortal combat. Mr. Crawford 
was Tate's friend. Dooly, contrary to all expectation, accepted, 
and named General Clark as his friend, and appointed a day of 
meeting. Tate had lost a leg, and, as was usual in that day, had 
substituted a wooden one. On the appointed day, Tate, with his 
friend, repaired to the place of meeting, where Dooly had preceded 
them, and was alone, sitting upon a stump. Crawford approached 
him, and asked for his friend. General Clark. 

" He is in the woods, sir." 

"And will soon be present, I presume?" asked Crawford. 

"Yes; as soon as he can find a gum." 

" May I inquire, Colonel Dooly, what use you have for a gum in 
the matter we have met to settle ? " 

" I want it to put my leg in, sir. Do you suppose I can afford to 
risk my leg of flesh and bone against Tate's wooden one ? If I hit 
his leg, why, he will have another to-morrow, and be pegging about 
as well as usual. If he hits mine, I may lose my life by it ; but 
almost certainly my leg, and be compelled, like Tate, to stump it 
the balance of my life. I cannot risk this ; and must have a gum to 



76 THE MEMORIES OF 

put my leg in : then I am as much wood as he is, and on equal terms 
with him." 

" I understand you, Colonel Dooly; you do not intend to fight." 

"Well, really, Mr. Crawford, I thought everybody knew that." 

"Very well, sir," said Crawford ; " but remember, colonel, your 
name, in no enviable light, shall fill a column of a newspaper." 

"Mr. Crawford, I assure you," replied Colonel Dooly, " I would 
rather fill every newspaper in Georgia than one coffin. ' ' 

It is scarcely necessary to say, that Tate and Crawford left the 
field discomfited, and here the matter ended. 

Dooly never pretended to belligerency. When Judge Gresham 
threatened to chastise him, he coolly replied he could do it; but that 
it would be no credit to him, for anybody could do it. And when 
he introduced his friend to another as the inferior judge of the 
Inferior Court of the inferior County of Lincoln, and was knocked 
down for the insult, he intreated the bystanders not to suffer him to 
be injured. When released from the grasp of his antagonist, he 
rubbed his head, and facetiously said: "This is the forty-second 
fight I have had, and if I ever got the best of one, I do not now 
recollect it." 

Judge Dooly was much beloved by the younger members of the 
Bar, to whom he was ever kind and indulgent, associating with them 
upon his circuit, and joining in all their amusements. His wit spared 
no one, and yet no one was offended at it. His humor was the life 
of the company wherever he was, and he was never so burdened 
with official dignity as to restrain it on the bench. Unbiassed by 
party considerations or personal prejudices, and only influenced by 
a sense of duty and wish to do right, it was impossible he could be 
otherwise than popular. This popularity, however, was personal, 
not political, and could never secure to him any political distinction. 
He was ambitious of a seat in the United States Senate, a distinction 
to which he more than once aspired ; but here the grinning ghost of 
Federalism always met him, frightening from his support even the 
nearest of his social friends. Mr. Crawford's wishes controlled the 
State, through the instrumentality of those he had distinguished with 
his countenance. None doubted the jiatriotism or capacity of Dooly 
for the position ; but he was a Federalist, and the friend of many of 
the prime movers of the Yazoo fraud ; and these were unpardonable 
sins with Crawford and his friends. No one ever charged upon 



FIFTY YEARS. ']'] 

Dooly the sin of a participation in this speculation, or the frauds 
through which it became a fixed fact, as a law of the State, by legis- 
lative act. But it was, for a very long time, fatal to the jJolitical 
aspirations of every one known to l^ personally friendly to any man 
in any way concerned in the matter. They were pariahs in the land, 
without friends or caste. 

Of all the men prominent in his day, George M. Troup was the 
most uncompromising in his hostility to those engaged in this specu- 
lation. It certainly was the work of a few persons only, and did not 
embrace one out of fifty of the Georgia Company. All, or nearly 
all of these, honestly embarked in the speculation, not doubting but 
that the State had the power to sell, and knowing -her pecuniary 
condition required that she should have money. Had they known 
that it required bribery to pass the rneasure, they would have scorned 
to become parties to such corruption ; nevertheless they were incul- 
pated, and had to share the infamy of the guilty few who thus accom- 
plished the purchase, as they shared the profits arising therefrom. 
But it did not stop with the participants. Their personal friends suf- 
fered, and no one individual so fatally as Dooly. He asserted the 
power of the Legislature to sell — he was sustained by the decision of 
the Supreme Court — he was not a stockholder — he afforded no aid 
with his personal influence ; yet the public clamor made him a Yazoo- 
man, and Troup was foremost in his denunciation of him. On this 
account it was that, upon a memorable occasion, Dooly declared 
that Troup's mouth was formed by nature to pronounce the word 
Yazoo. It had been proposed to Dooly, at the time Forsyth aban- 
doned the Federal party, to follow his example ; but he refused 
to part with his first love, and clung to her, and shared, without a 
murmur, her fortunes and her fate, which condemned him to a 
comparative obscurity for all the future. 

It was long years after, and when Mr. Forsyth was in the zenith 
of his popularity, that the friends of Dooly proposed his name for 
the Senate of the United States. His was the only name announced 
as a candidate to the Legislature, but, on counting the ballots, it was 
found Forsyth had been elected. Dooly was present, and remarked 
to a friend that he was the only man he ever knew to be beaten who 
ran without opposition. He saw the aspiring companions of his 
youth favorites of the people, and thrust forward into public places, 
winning fame, and rising from one position to another of higher 
7* 



78 THE MEMORIES OF 

distinction. He witnessed the advance of men whom he had known 
as children in his manhood, preferred over him ; and, in the con- 
sciousness of his own superiority to most or all of these, rather 
despised than regretted the prejudices of the public — influenced 
by men designing and selfish — which consigned him to obscurity 
because of an honest difference of opinion upon a point of policy 
which ninety out of every hundred kn^w nothing about. While the 
companions of his early youth were filling missions abroad, execu- 
tive offices at home, and Cabinet appointments, he was wearing out 
his life in a position where, whatever his abilities, there was little 
fame to be won. Still he would make no compromise of principle. 
In faith he was sincere, and too honest to pretend a faith he had not, 
though honors and proud distinction waited to reward the deceit. 
As true to his friends as his principles, he would not desert either, 
and surrender his virtue to the seductions of office and honors. 
Toward the close of his life, his friends got into office and power. 
His friend, John Clarke, was elected Governor, upon the demise of 
Governor Rabun ; but his day had passed, and other and younger 
men thrust him aside. Parties were growing more and more cor- 
rupt, and to subserve the uses of corruption, more tractable and 
pliant tools were required than could be made of Dooly. 

The election of Clarke was a triumph over the friends of Craw- 
ford, who was then a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, and had 
long been absent from the State. It revived anew the flame of dis- 
cord, which had smouldered under the ashes of time. The embers 
lived, and the division into parties of the people of the United 
States, consequent upon the disruption of the Federal and Repub- 
lican parties, and the candidacy of Mr. Crawford for the Presidency, 
caused a division of the old Republican party in Georgia. Clarke 
immediately headed the opposition to Crawford, and his election 
was hailed as an evidence of Mr. Crawford's unpopularity at home. 
This election startled the old friends of this distinguished son of 
Georgia, and revived the old feeling. Clarke was a man of strong 
will, without much mind, brave, and vindictive, and nursed the 
most intense hatred of Crawford constantly in his heart. The long 
absence of Crawford from the State, and the secluded retirement of 
Clarke, had caused to cool in the public mind much of the former 
bitterness of the two factions in the State, but now it was rekindled. 
There were very many young men, who had been too young to take 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 79 

any part in these factions, but who were now the active and ambitious 
element in the State. Many persons, too, had immigrated into the 
new-settled parts of the State, who were strangers to the feuds which 
had once divided her people, and which now began to do so anew. 
Each party sought to win and secure this element. Every news- 
paper in the State, every judge upon the bench, every member of 
Congress was in the interest of Crawford ; and yet there was a 
majority of the people of the State attached to the Clarke faction. 
He and his friends had long been proscribed, and they pleaded per- 
secution. The natural sympathies of the heart were touched by these 
appeals, and it was feared the State would be lost to Crawford in the 
coming Presidential election. Every effort was now to be made to 
defeat this faction against him, headed by Clarke. The election of 
Governor at this time was by the Legislature; and it was not antici- 
pated that there would be any difficulty in the re-election of Rabun, 
and, consequently, there had been no agitation of the question before 
the people at the recent election of members of the Legislature. 
Scarcely a tithe of the people had even heard of the candidacy of 
Clarke when his election was announced ; and, at the time, so little 
interest was felt on the subject, that very few objected to his elec- 
tion. Clarke was a man of violent passions, and had been, to some 
extent, irregular and dissipated in his habits. When excited by any 
means, he was fierce ; but when with drink, he was boisterous, abu- 
sive, and destructive. Many stories were related of terrible acts of 
his commission — riding into houses, smashing furniture, glass, and 
crockery — of persecutions of his family and weak persons he dis- 
liked. This had aroused in the pious and orderly members of 
society strong opposition to him, and at this time all his sins and 
irregularities were widely and loudly heralded to the public. The 
preachers, with few exceptions, denounced him, and those who did 
not were very soon with him denounced. Very soon after his inau- 
guration, the celebrated Jesse Mercer — the great gun of the Baptist 
denomination in Georgia — was invited to preach the funeral sermon 
of Governor Rabun. Mercer was an especial friend of Mr. Craw- 
ford, and a more especial enemy of Clarke. In many respects he 
was a remarkable man — a zealous and intolerant sectarian, and 
quite as uncompromising and bitter in his political feelings. His 
zeal knew no bounds in propagating his religious faith, and it was 
quite as ardent in persecuting his political opponents. It was doubt- 



80 THEME MORIESOF 

ful which he most hated — the Devil or John Clarke. Rabun had 
been his neighbor, his friend, and, above all, a member and elder in 
his church. It was quite fitting under the circumstances that he 
should be selected to officiate in the funeral services in honor of the 
late Governor. From respect, Clarke and the Legislature were pres- 
ent. The moment Mercer's eye, from the pulpit, descried Clarke, 
he threw open his Bible violently, and for many minutes was busy 
searching from page to page some desired text. At last he smiled. 
And such a smile ! It was malignant as that of a catamount. Turn- 
ing down the leaf — as was the custom of his church — he rose and 
gave out to be sung, line by line, his hymn. This concluded, he 
made a short and hurried prayer — contrary to his custom — and, 
rising from his prayerful position, opened his Bible, and fixing his 
eye upon Clarke, he directed his audience to his text, and read : 

" When the wicked rule, the land mourns." 

The expression of his countenance, the twinkling of his eye, all 
pointed so clearly to Clarke as to direct the attention of every one 
present to the Governor. This was followed by a sermon half made 
up of the irregularities of Clarke's life. This was the tocsin to the 
church, and it came down in force with the opposition to the Gov- 
ernor elect. It was, too, the slogan of the Crawford party to rally 
for a new conflict. 

Mr. Crawford's conduct as a representative of the State in Con- 
gress, and the representative of her people in his foreign mission, 
had been eminently satisfactory ; and his present elevated position 
as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States was exceedingly 
gratifying to their pride. When it was determined by his friends to 
present his name to the nation as a candidate for the Presidency, it 
was supposed his support would be unanimous in Georgia. Time 
had given opportunity for the prejudices and hatreds of youth to 
wear out with the passions of youth. Those, however, who knew 
John Clarke, were not deceived when he successfully rallied a party 
in opposition. So little interest had been felt in the personal diffi- 
culty formerly existing between Clarke and Crawford, that even 
those who remembered it attached to it no importance, and they did 
not suppose Clarke's election was to be the commencement of an 
organized opposition to Crawford's election, and of the bitterness 
which was to follow. 

There was scarcely the show of opposition to the election of 



FIFTY YEARS. 8l 

Clarke. Those who remembered the old feud, and how completely 
it had pressed down all the ambitious hopes and aspirations of Clarke, 
were willing to forget the past, and, though warm friends of Mr. 
Crawford, to vote for Clarke, and honor him with the first office in 
the State. Some felt his treatment had been too harsh, and that for 
his father's Yazoo antecedents he had been made to pay quite too 
severe a penalty, and were desirous to manifest their feelings in their 
votes. 13esides,his family connections were most respectable. Grif- 
fin Campbell and Dr. Bird were his brothers-in-law, and were men 
of high character and great influence. The friends of these gentle- 
men united in his support. And there was still another, whose 
influence, to the writer's knowledge, carried four young, talented 
members of the House to the support of her father — Ann Clarke, 
the only daughter of John Clarke, who had no superior among her 
sex in talent, beauty, and accomplishments, in the State. During 
the incumbency of her father she did the honors of the executive 
mansion with a dignity, grace, and affability which won all hearts, 
and added greatly to the popularity of the Governor. She married 
Colonel John W. Campbell, and all her after - life has justified 
the promise of her girlhood. Left a widow with many children, 
she has reared and educated them to be an honor to their mother, 
and, as she was, an ornament to society. She is now an aged 
woman, and resides in Texas, honored and beloved by all who 
know her. 

The election of Clarke was illy received by the old and tried 
friends of Crawford throughout the State. They knew him. His 
stern, inflexible character and indomitable will were sure to rally 
about him a party ; and his personal bravery and devotion to his 
friends would greatly aid in keeping and inspiring these. His posi- 
tion now was one of strength, with the capacity to increase it, and 
the material was abundant ; yet there were formidable difficulties in 
his way. All, or very nearly all of the leading families of the State 
— the Lamars, Cobbs, Mclntoshes, Waynes, Telfairs, Cummings, 
Tatnals, Dawsons, Abercrombies, Holts, Blackshears, and many 
others — were Republicans, and active in the support of Crawford 
for the Presidency. These apparently insurmountable difficulties 
were to be overcome in the organization of new parties. The com- 
plete breaking up of the Republican party of the nation was favora- 
ble ; and there was another element which the sagacity of Campbell 



82 THE MEMORIES OF 

soon discovered and laid hold upon. There were many ambitious 
and disappointed men and families in the State beside Clarke and 
his family. 

The overwhelming popularity of Crawford as the head of the 
Republican party in the State had enabled his friends to monopolize 
all the offices, and give direction to every political movement and 
fix the destiny of every political aspirant. Under this regime many 
had been summarily set aside, and were soured. The talents of 
Troup, Forsyth, Cobb, Berrien, Tatnal, and some others, pointed 
them out as men to be honored, because they honored the State. 
They seemed to hold a possessory right to the distinguished posi- 
tions, and to dictate who should be elected to the minor ones. 
Young ambition submitted, but was restless and impatient to break 
away from this dominion. Party stringency had enforced it, but 
this was loosened, and all that was now wanting was a head to rally 
them*nto a new and formidable party. Every old Federalist in the 
State who had clung to his principles attached himself to Clarke. 
There were many strong families, wielding a potent influence in their 
neighborhoods, attached to Federal principles. The Watkins, Hills, 
Walkers, Glasscocks, and Adamses all soon sided with the new 
party. A press in its support was greatly needed, and was soon 
established, and given in charge of Cosein E. Bartlett, than whom 
no man was better calculated for such a service as was demanded of 
him. 

There were not at this time a dozen newspapers in the State. With 
all of them had Bartlett to do battle for the cause in which he had 
enlisted, and right valiantly did he do it. He was a fluent and most 
caustic writer, and was always ready, not only to write, but to fight 
for his party, and would with his blood sustain anything he might 
say or write. Like most party editors, he only saw the interest of 
his party in what he would write, and would write anything he sup- 
posed would further the ends of his party. Almost immediately 
after the election of Clarke, the opposition presented the name of 
George M. Troup, who had been voted for as an o])posing candi- 
date at the time of Clarke's election. It was but a little while before 
the State trembled with the agitation which seemed to disturb every 
breast. None could be neutral. All were compelled to take sides 
or be crushed between the contending parties or factions; for this 
division of the people was only factious. There was no great prin- 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 83 

ciple upon which they divided ; it was men only. Clarke and his 
friends favored the pretensions of Mr. Calhoun to the Presidency 
solely because he was the enemy of Crawford, and they were subse- 
quently transferred to the support of Jackson as readily as cattle in 
the market. 

For two years was this agitation increasing in intensity, and so 
bitter had it made animosities arising out of it, that reason seemed to 
reel, and justice to forget her duty. Men were chosen indiscrimi- 
nately to office because of party proclivities. Intelligence and moral 
worth were entirely disregarded — families divided — husbands and 
wives quarrelled — father and sons were estranged, and brothers 
were at deadly strife. There was no argument in the matter; for 
there was nothing ujwn which to predicate an argument. To intro- 
duce the subject was to promote a quarrel. Churches were dis- 
tracted and at discord, and the pulpit, for the first time in Georgia, 
desecrated by political philippics. Pierce then, as now, was the 
leading minister of the Methodist Church in the State, and abstained 
in the pulpit, but made no secret of his preferences upon the street. 
Duffie travelled everywhere. He had by unkindness driven from 
him his wife with her infant child, and, in her helpless and desperate 
condition, she had taken refuge with the Shaking Quakers in the 
West, and remained with them until her death. His son came to 
him after maturity, and was established by him on a plantation with 
a number of slaves ; but, having inherited all the brutal ferocity of 
his father, it was not long before he murdered one or two of them. 
Incarcerated in the county jail, his father invoked party aid to release 
him, openly declaring it was due to him for party services in oppos- 
ing that son of the Devil — John Clarke. Whether his party or his 
money did the work I know not ; but the miserable wretch escaped 
from jail, and was never brought to trial. 

Peter Gautier was another prominent preacher- politician, and 
exercised his talents in the service of Clarke. He was by birth 
an American, but his parents were French. He was a bad man, 
but of eminent abilities, and exercised great influence in the western 
portion of the State. After Pierce, he was the superior of all of his 
denomination as a pulpit orator ; and in will and energy unequalled 
by any other. Bold, unscrupulous, and passionate, he, regardless 
of his profession, mingled freely, at county musters and political 
barbecues, with the lowest and vilest of the community, using every 



84 THEMEMORIESOF 

art his genius suggested to inflame the mad passions of men already 
excited to frenzy. In after life the viciousness and unscnipulous- 
ness of his nature overmastered his hypocrisy and burst out in acts 
of dishonesty and profanity, which disgraced and drove him from 
the State. He sought security from public scorn in the wilds of 
Florida ; but all restraint had given way, and very soon the innate 
perfidy of his nature manifested itself in all his conduct, and he was 
obliged to retire from Florida. At that time Texas was the outlet 
for all such characters, and thither went Gautier, where he died. 

Every means which talent and ingenuity could devise was put into 
requisition by both parties to secure their ascendency. The men of 
abilities greatly preponderated in the Troup faction ; and the pens 
of Cobb, Gumming, Wild, Grantland, Gilmer, and Foster were 
active in promoting the election of Troup, and thereby regaining 
the lost power of the old Crawford or Republican party. Many 
young men of talent had espoused the Clarke faction, and, under the 
guidance of Dooly, Campbell, and Clarke, were doing yeomen's 
work for the cause. Among these was Charles J. McDonald, whose 
fine character and family influence rendered him conspicuously 
popular. This popularity he retained to the end of his life. It 
elevated him to the Gubernatorial chair, after serving in the United 
States Congress and for years upon the bench of the Superior Court. 
His talents were not of the first order, but his honesty, sincerity, and 
goodness made him beloved. 

Bartlett was struggling with all his energies to write up the admin- 
istration and to defend the Governor against the fierce and reiterated 
attacks of the opposition. About this period there appeared some 
articles in a paper in Augusta, Georgia, reflecting upon Mr. Craw- 
ford, in reply to several papers signed "C," which were written by 
Richard H. A^Viki. then a member of Congress from Georgia. 
These articles w^e attributed to Colonel William Gumming, of 
Ai'gusta, and " C," in reply, attacked him severely. He was not a 
man to be badgered by an anonymous writer in a ne\»rspaper. He 
demanded immediately of the editor the name of his correspondent, 
and that of George McDuffie, of South Carolina, was given. A chal- 
lenge ensued — a meeting followed, in which McDuffie was seriously 
wounded, and which ultimately caused his death. This aff'air in- 
creased the hatred between the Georgians and Carolinians, as it did 
not cease with a single meeting. Gumming renewed his challenge 



FIFTY YEARS. 85 

in consequence of a statement made by McDuffie in a paper to the 
public, narrating offensively — as Gumming felt — the particulars of 
the affair. A second meeting was the consequence, at which a aiffi- 
culty arose between the seconds, and it was adjourned to another 
day and another place. At this third meeting, in an exchange of 
shots, McDuffie's arm was broken, and this terminated the difficulty; 
but it did not appease the animosity of the friends of the parties. 

These combatants were both men of remarkable abilities. Colonel 
William Gumming was a native of Augusta, Georgia. Born to the 
inheritance of fortune, he received a liberal education and selected 
the law as a profession. He read with the celebrated Judges Reeve 
and Gould, at Litchfield, Gonnecticut. At the period of his study 
this was the only law-school in the United States. Many anecdotes 
of his peculiarities during his residence at the school were related by 
his preceptors to the young gentlemen from Georgia who followed 
him in the office in after years, A moot court was a part of the sys- 
tem of instruction, in which questions of law, propounded by one of 
the professors, were argued by students appointed for the purpose. 
On one occasion, Gumming was replying to the argument of a com- 
petitor, and was so caustic as to be offensive. This was resented 
by insulting words. Turning to the gentleman, and without speak- 
ing, Gumming knocked him down. Immediately, and without the 
slightest appearance of excitement, addressing the presiding profes- 
sor, he remarked : "Having thus summarily disposed of the gentle- 
man, I will proceed to treat his argument in like manner." 

Upon his return to Georgia, the war with England having broken 
out, he procured the commission of a captain and entered the army. 
He was transferred to the northern frontier — then the seat of active 
operations — and soon distinguished himself amid that immortal 
band, all of whom now sleep with their fathers — Miller, Brook, 
Jessup, McGrea, Appling, Gaines, and Twiggs. Gumming, Appling, 
and Twiggs were Georgians. At the battle of Lundy's Lane he was 
severely wounded and borne from the field. He was placed in an 
adjoining room to General Preston, who was also suffering from a 
wound. Gumming was a favorite of Preston's, and both were full 
of prejudice toward the men of the North. Late at night, Preston 
was aroused by a boisterous laugh in Gumming's apartment. Such 
a laugh was so unusual with him that the general supposed he had 



S6 TII E ' MEMORIES OF 

become delirious from pain. He was unable to go to him, but 
called and inquired the cause of his mirth. 

"I can't sleep," was the reply, "and I was thinking over the 
incidents of the day, and just remembered that there had not in the 
conflict been an officer wounded whose home was north of Mason 
and Dixon's line. Those fellows know well how to take care of 
their bacon." 

He was soon promoted to a colonelcy, and was fast rising to the 
next grade when the war terminated. In the reduction of the army 
he was retained — a compliment to his merits as a man and an 
officer. He was satisfied with this, and, in declining to remain in 
the army, wrote to the Secretary of War : 

"There are many whose services have been greater, and whose 
merits are superior to mine, who have no other means of a liveli- 
hood. I am independent, and desire some other may be retained 
in my stead." 

He was unambitious of political distinction, though intensely 
solicitous to promote that of his friends. His high qualities of soul 
and mind endeared him to the people of the State, who desired and 
sought every occasion which they deemed worthy of him, to tender 
him the first positions within their gift ; but upon every one of these 
he remained firm to his purpose, refusing always the proffered pre- 
ferment. Upon one occasion, when written to by a majority of the 
members of the Legislature, entreating him to permit them to send 
him to the Senate of the United States, he declined, adding : " I am 
a plain, military man. Should my country, in that capacity, require 
my services, I shall be ready to render them; but in no other." 
He continued to reside in Augusta in extreme seclusion. Upon the 
breaking out of the war with Mexico he was tendered, by Mr. Polk, 
the command of the army, but declined on account of his age and 
declining health, deeming himself physically incapable of encounter- 
ing the fatigue the position would involve. 

The habits of Colonel Gumming were peculiar. 'His intercourse 
with his fellow-men was confined to a very few tried friends. He 
never married, and was rarely known to hold any familiar intercourse 
with females. So secluded did he live, that for many years he was 
a stranger to almost every one in his native city. He was strictly 
truthful, punctual to his engagements in business matters, and honest 
in all things. In person, he was very commanding. In his walk the 



FIFTY YEARS. \87 

whole man was seen — erect, dignified, and impetuous. Energy and 
command flashed from his great, gray eyes. His large head and 
square chin, with lips compressed, indicated the talent and firmness 
which were the great characteristics of his nature. Impatient of 
folly, he cultivated no intercourse with silly persons, nor brooked 
for a moment the forward impertinence of little pretenders. To 
those whose qualities of mind and whose habits were congenial to 
his own, and whom he permitted familiarly to approach him, he 
was exceedingly affable, and with such he frequently jested, and 
hilariously enjoyed the piquant story in mirthful humor ; but this was 
for the few. He was a proud man, and was at no pains to conceal 
his contempt for pert folly or intrusive ignorance, wherever and in 
whomsoever he met it. 

In early life he was the close intimate of Richard Henry Wildl^ 
and was a great admirer of his genius, and especially his great and 
interesting conversational powers. Unexceptionable in his morals, he 
was severe upon those whose lives were deformed by the petty vices 
which society condemns yet practises in so many instances and uni- 
versally tolerates. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the talents and learning of such a 
man should not be given to mankind. Every one capable of appre- 
ciating these great attributes in man, and who knew Colonel Gum- 
ming, will, with the writer, regret that he persistently refused every 
persuasion of his friends to allow them to place him in such a position 
before the country as would bring his great qualities prominently 
forward in the service, and for the benefit of his fellow-men. His 
proud nature scorned the petty arts of the politician ; and he doubt- 
less felt place could only be had or retained by the use of these 
arts ; he was of too high principle to descend to them, and held 
in great contempt those whose confidence and favor could only 
be had by chicanery. He was not a people's man, and had in his 
nature very little in common with the masses ; and, like Coriolanus, 
scorned and shunned the great unwashed. He lived out his three- 
score years and ten, hiding the jewel God had given him, and 
appropriating it only to the use of his own happiness in the solitude 
he loved. 

George McDuffie was a very different man. Born of humble 
parentage in one of the eastern counties of Georgia, he enjoyed but 
few advantages. His early education was limited : a fortuitous cir- 



88 THEMEMORIESOF 

cumstance brought him to the knowledge of Mr. Calhoun, who saw 
at once in the boy the promise of the man. Proposing to educate 
him and fit him for a destiny which he believed an eminent one, he 
invited him to his home, and furnished him with the means of accom- 
plishing this end. His ambition had often whispered to his young 
mind a proud future, and he commenced the acquisition of the edu- 
cation which was, as he felt, essential as a means of its attainment. 
In this he made rapid progress, and at the age of twenty-five grad- 
uated at the university of South Carolina. It was not long after 
graduating before he was admitted to the Bar, and commenced the 
practice of law in company with Eldridge Simpkins, at Edgefield 
Court House, who was, if I mistake not, at the time, a member of 
Congress. 

The rise of McDufifte at the Bar was rapid ; he had not practised 
three years before his position was by the side of the first minds of 
the State, and his name in the mouth of every one — the coming man 
of the South. It was probably owing to the defence made by him 
of William Taylor for the killing of Dr. Cheesboro, that he became 
famous as it were in a day. This case excited the people of the 
whole State of South Carolina. The parties were, so far as position 
was concerned, the first in the State. William Taylor was the brother 
of John Taylor, who at the time of the killing was Governor of the 
State. John Taylor, his grandfather, was a distinguished officer in 
the army of the Revolution : the family was wealthy, and extensively 
connected with the first families of the State. Cheesboro was a 
young physician of great promise and extensive practice. Jealousy 
was the cause of the killing, and was evidently groundless. The 
deed was done in the house of Taylor, in the city of Columbia, and 
was premeditated murder. Mrs. Taylor was a lovely woman and 
highly connected. In her manners she was affable and cordial ; she 
was a great favorite in society, and her universal popularity attracted 
to her the host of friends who so much admired her. Dr. Cheesboro 
was one of these, and the green-eyed monster made him, in the con- 
victions of Taylor, the especial favorite of his wife. McDuffie was 
employed in his defence, and he made a most triumphant success 
against evidence, law, and justice. His speech to the jury was most 
effective. The trial had called to Columbia many persons connected 
with the family; and all were interested to save from an ignominious 
death their relative. This, it was thought, could only be done by the 



FIFTY YEARS. 89 

sacrifice of the wife's reputation. This would not only ruin forever 
this estimable lady, but reflect a stain upon her extensive and 
respectable connections. She was appealed to, to save her husband's 
life with the sacrifice of her fame. In the consciousness of innocence, 
she refused with Spartan firmness to slander her reputation by stain- 
ing her conscience with a lie. Her friends stood by her ; and when 
hope had withered into despair, and the possibility gone forever of 
saving him by this means, the eloquence of McDufiie and the influ- 
ence of family were invoked, and successfully. 

In the examination of the witnesses he showed great tact, and suc- 
cessfully kept from the jury facts which would have left them no 
excuse for a verdict of acquittal. But it was in his address that his 
great powers made themselves manifest. The opening was impas- 
sioned and powerful. Scarcely had he spoken ten minutes before 
the Bench, the Bar, the jury, and the audience were in tears, and, 
during the entire speech, so entirely did he control the feelings of 
every one who heard him, that the sobs from every part of the court- 
room were audible above the sounds of his voice. When he had 
concluded, the jury went weeping from the box to the room of their 
deliberations, and soon returned a verdict of acquittal. 

This eff"ort established the fame of McDuffie as an orator and man 
of great mental powers. Fortunately at that time it was the pride 
of South Carolina to call to her service the best talent in all the public 
offices, State and national, and with one acclaim the people de- 
manded his services in Congress. Mr. Simpkins, the incumbent from 
the Edgefield district, declined a re-election, that his legal partner, 
Mr. McDuffie, might succeed him, and he was chosen by acclama- 
tion. He came in at a time when talent abounded in Congress, and 
when the country was deeply agitated with the approaching election 
for President. Almost immediately upon his entering Congress an 
altercation occurred upon the floor of the House between him and 
Mr. Randolph, which resulted in the discomfiture of Mr. Randolph, 
causing him to leave the House in a rage, with the determination to 
challenge McDuffie. This, however, when he cooled, he declined 
to do. This rencontre of wit and bitter words gave rise to an 
amusing incident during its progress. 

Jack Baker, the wag and wit of Virginia, was an auditor in the 
gallery of the House. Randolph, as usual, was the assailant, and 
was very severe. McDuffie replied, and was equally caustic, and 



90 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

this to the astonishment of every one ; for all supposed the young 
member was annihilated — as so many before had been by Ran- 
dolph — and would not reply. His antagonist was completely taken 
aback, and evidently felt, with Sir Andrew Ague-cheek: " Had I 
known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere 
I had fought him." But he was in for it, and must reply. His 
rejoinder was angry, and wanting in his usual biting sarcasm. 
McDuffie rose to reply, and, pausing, seemed to hesitate, when Baker 
from the gallery audibly exclaimed : " Lay on, McDuff, and damned 
be he who first cries hold, enough!" The silence which pervaded 
the chamber was broken by a general laugh, greatly disconcerting 
Randolph, but seeming to inspire McDuffie, who went on in a strain 
of vituperation witheringly pungent, in the midst of which Mr. Ran- 
dolph left his seat and the House. Here was a triumph few had 
enjoyed. Not even Bayard, in his famous attack upon Randolph, 
when the latter first came into Congress, had won so much. Every 
one seemed delighted. The newspapers heralded it to the country, 
and McDuffie had a national reputation. Everything seemed propi- 
tious for his fame, and every friend of Mr. Calhoun felt that he had a 
champion in his prot^g^, who, in good service, would return him 
fourfold for his noble generosity to the boy. 

The contest with Cumming whetted more sharply the edge of 
the animosity between Georgia and South Carolina. The two 
were considered the champions of their respective States, as also 
the chosen knights of their respective friends — Crawford and Cal- 
houn. The States and the friends of the parties in this quarrel very 
soon arrayed themselves in antagonism, which was made personal on 
many occasions, and between many parties. The young were espe- 
cially prominent in their demonstrations of hostile feeling, not 
excepting the belles of the respective States. Between them, I 
believe, it never went beyond words ; but they were frequent in con- 
flict, and sometimes very bitter and very witty ones escaped from 
lovely lips, attesting that the face of beauty was underlaid with pas- 
sion's deformity. With the young gallants it went to blows, and, 
on a few occasions, to more deadly strife ; and always marred the 
harmony of the association where there were young representatives 
of both States. On one occasion of social meeting at a public din- 
ner-party in Georgia, a young South Carolinian gave as a sentiment: 
"George McDuffie — the pride of South Carolina." This was 



FIFTY YEARS. 9I 

immediately responded to by Mirabeau B. Lamar, the late President 
of Texas, who was then young, and a great pet of his friends, with 
another: " Colonel William Gumming — 

" The man who England's arms defied, 
A bar to base designers ; 
Who checked alike old Britain's pride 
And noisy South Carolina's." 

The wit of the impromptu was so fine and the company so appre- 
ciative, that, as if by common consent, all enjoyed it, and good feel- 
ing was not disturbed. » 

McDuffie was not above the middle size. His features were large 
and striking, especially his eyes, forehead, and nose. The latter 
was prominent and aquiljne. His eyes were very brilliant, blue, 
and deeply set under a massive brow — his mouth large, with finely 
chiselled lips, which, in meeting, always wore the appearance of 
being compressed. In manners he was retiring without being awk- 
ward. His temperament was nervous and ardent, and his feelings 
strong. His manner when speaking was nervous and impassioned, 
and at times fiercely vehement, and again persuasive and tenderly 
pathetic, and in every mood he was deeply eloquent. 

In the after period of life these antagonists were, through the 
instrumentality of a noble-hearted Hibernian, reconciled, and sin- 
cerely so — both regretting the past, and willing to bury its memory 
in social intimacy. McDuffie married Miss Singleton, of South 
Carolina, one of the loveliest and most accomplished ladies of the 
Slate. 

Owing to the wound received in the duel with Cumming, his ner- 
vous system suffered, and finally his brain. The ball remained 
imbedded in the spine, and pressed upon the spinal chord. An 
attempt to remove it, the surgeons determined, would be more 
hazardous to life than to permit it to remain. There was no remedy. 
From its effects his mind began to decay, and finally perished, leav- 
ing him, long before his death, a melancholy imbecile. In all the 
relations of life this great man was faithful to his duties — a devoted 
husband, a sincere friend, a kind neighbor, and a considerate and 
indulgent master to his slaves. He was one of those rare creations 
for which there is no accounting. None of his family evinced more 
than very ordinary minds ; nor can there be traced in his ancestry 



92 THE MEMORIES OF 

one after whom his nature and abilities were marked. His morals 
were as pure and elevated as his intellect was grand and compre- 
hensive, and his soul was as lofty and chivalrous as the Chevalier 
Bayard's. His fame is too broad to be claimed alone by South 
Carolina. Georgia is proud of giving him birth, and the nation 
cherishes his glory. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

Governor Mathews — Indians — Topography of Middle Georgia — A 
New Country and its Settlers — Beaux and Belles — Early Train- 
ing — Jesuit Teachers — A Mother's Influence — The Jews — Homely 
Sports — The Cotton Gin — Camp-Meetings. 

IMMEDIATELY subsequent to the Revolution, all the country 
northwest of the Ogeechee River, in the middle portion of the 
State of Georgia, was divided into two counties, Franklin and Wilkes. 
It was a wilderness, and contiguous to both the Creek and Cherokee 
Indian nations. No country in the world was more beautiful in its 
topography, and few more fertile in soil. Governor Mathews had 
purchased a home in this region; and being at this time the principal 
man in the up-country, attracted to his neighborhood the emigrants 
who began to come into the country. 

Mathew's Revolutionary services in the command of a regiment 
in the Virginia line were eminent ; and his character for intrepidity 
naturally made him a leader among such men as were likely to 
seek and make homes in a new country. 

Surrounded not only with all the difficulties presented to him by the 
unsubdued wilderness, but the perils of savage warfare, he unflinch- 
ingly went forward in his enterprise, daring and conquering every 
obstacle nature and the savages interposed. He was an uneducated 
man; but of strong mind, ardent temperament, and most determined 
will. Many anecdotes are related of his intrepidity, self-respect, and 
unbending will. He was a native of Augusta County, Virginia, and 
emigrated to Georgia about the same time that Elijah Clarke came 



FIFTY YEARS. 93 

from North Carolina and settled in that portion of the new territory 
now known as Clarke County. 

These two remarkable men formed a nucleus for those of their 
respective States who came at subsequent periods to make a home 
in Georgia. They were models to the youth of their respective 
neighborhoods, and gave tone to the character of the population for 
many years after they were in their graves. About the same time, 
the Earlys came from Virginia, and the Abercrombies from North 
Carolina, and located respectively in the new counties of Greene 
and Hancock. They were all men of strong character, and all 
exercised great influence with those who accompanied or came to 
them at a subsequent period. 

Among the very first to locate in Greene County was Colonel David 
Love, from North Carolina, and soon after came the Nesbits, Jack- 
sons, and Hortons; all of whom settled upon the head-waters of the 
Ogeechee and upon Shoulderbone Creek. 

The country was very attractive, the soil very generous, the water 
good, and the health remarkable. The general topography of 
Middle Georgia (as that portion of Georgia is now termed) is 
unsurpassed by any other portion of the State for beauty — hill and 
dale, the one not rising many feet above the other, generally with 
beautiful slopes, and scarcely at any place with so much abruptness 
as to forbid cultivation. Upon these lovely acclivities were built the 
cabins of the emigrants, at the base of which, and near the house, 
was always to be found a fountain of pure, sweet water, gushing and 
l)urling away over sand and pebbles, meandering through a valley 
which it fertilized, and which abounds in shrubs flowering in beauty, 
and sheltered by forests of oak, hickory, pine, and gum. 

Those who first came were frecjuently compelled to unite in a set- 
tlement at some selected point, and, for defence against the inroads 
of the savages, were obliged to build stockade forts, with block- 
houses. 

Nature seems to have prepared, during the Revolution, men for 
subduing the wilderness and its savage inhabitants. They cheerfully 
encountered all the difficulties and hazards thus presented, and con- 
stantly pursued their object to its consummation. They came from 
every section of the older communities, and all seemed animated 
with the same spirit. They were orderly, but rude ; and though 
beyond the pale of the law, they were a law unto themselves ; and 



94 THEMEMORIESOF 

these laws were strictly enforced by a public opinion which gave 
them being and efificiency. With remarkably simple habits and very 
limited opportunities, their wants were few ; and these were supplied 
by their own industry and frugality upon the farm. Their currency 
was silver coin, Spanish milled, and extremely limited in quantity. 
The little trade carried on was principally by barter, and social 
intercourse was confined almost exclusively to the Sabbath. The 
roads were rough and uneven, consisting almost entirely of a way 
sufficiently wide for an ox-cart to pass, cut through the forest, where 
the stumps and stones remained ; and in soft or muddy places, the 
bodies of small trees or split rails were placed side by side, so as to 
form a sort of bridge or causeway, so rough as to test and not 
unfrequently to destroy the wheels of the rude vehicles of the 
country. 'These obtained and to this day receive the sobriquet of 
Georgia railroads or corduroy turnpikes. 

Very few of these immigrants were independent of labor; and most 
of them devoted six days of the week to the cultivation of a small 
farm and its improvement. Children learned early to assist in this 
labor, and those who were sent to school, almost universally employed 
the Saturday of each week in farm-work. 

Man's social nature induces aggregation into communities, which 
stimulates an ambition to excel in every undertaking. From this 
emulation grows excellence and progress in every laudable enter- 
prise. These small communities, as they grew from accessions 
coming into the country, began to build rude places for public wor- 
ship, which were primitive log-cabins, and served as well the pur- 
poses of a school-house. Here the adult population assembled on 
the Sabbath, and the children during the w6ek. This intercourse, 
together with the dependence of every one at times for neighborly 
assistance, was greatly promotive of harmony and mutual confidence. 
Close and familiar acquaintance revealed to all the peculiar charac- 
ter of every one — the virtuous and the vicious, the energetic or the 
indolent, the noble and the ignoble — and all very soon came to 
be appreciated according to their merit. 

Rude sports constituted the amusements of the young — wrestling, 
leaping, and hunting ; and he who was most expert at these was the 
neighborhood's pride: he rode from church with the prettiest girl, 
and was sure to be welcomed by her parents when he came ; and to 
be selected by such an one was to become the neighborhood's belle. 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 95 

At log-rollings, quiltings, and Saturday-night frolics, he was the first 
and the most admired. 

The girls, too, were not without distinction — she who could spin 
the greatest number of cuts of cotton, or weave the greatest number 
of yards of cloth, was most distinguished, and most admired ; but 
especially was she distinguished who could spin and weave the 
neatest fabric for her own wear, of white cloth with a turkey-red 
stripe — cut, and make it fit the labor-rounded person and limbs — or 
make, for father's or brother's wear, the finest or prettiest piece of 
jean — cook the nicest dinners for her beau, or dance the longest 
without fatigue. 

The sexes universally associated at the same school, (a system 
unfortunately grown out of use,) and grew up together with a perfect 
knowledge of the disposition, temperament, and general character of 
each other. And, as assuredly as the boy is father to the man, the 
girl is mother to the woman ; and these peculiarities were attractive 
or repulsive as they differed in individuals, and were always an influ- 
ence in the selection of husbands and wives. The prejudices of 
childhood endure through life, particularly those toward persons. 
They are universally predicated upon so trait of manner or char- 
acter, and these, as in the boy percei\i '^.re ever prominent in the 
man. So, too, with the girl, and they* on. y grow with the woman. 
This is a paramount reason why parties about contracting marriage- 
alliances should be well aware of whom they are about to select. 
The consequence of this intercommunication of the sexes from 
childhood, in the primitive days of Georgia's first settlement, was 
seen in the harmony of families. In the age which followed, a sep- 
aration or divorce was as rare as an earthquake ; and when occurring, 
agitated the whole community. For then a marriage was deemed a 
life-union, for good or for evil, and was not lightly or inconsider- 
ately entered into. 

The separation of the sexes in early youth, and especially at 
school, destroys or prevents in an eminent degree the restraining 
influences upon the actions of each other, and that tender desire for 
the society of each other, which grows from childhood's associations. 
Brought together at school in early life, when the mind and soul are 
receiving the impressions which endure through life, they naturally 
form intimacies, and almost always special partialities and preferences. 
Each has his or her favorite, these partialities are usually reciprocal, 



96 THEME MORIESOF 

and their consequence is a desire on the part of each to see the other 
excel. To accomplish this, children, as well as grown people, will 
make a greater effort than they will simply to succeed or to gratify 
a personal ambition to that effect. Thus they sympathize with and 
stimulate each other. Every Georgia boy of fifty years ago, with 
gray-head and tottering step now, remembers his sweetheart, for 
whom he carried his hat full of peaches to school, and for whom 
he made the grape-vine swing, and how at noon he swung her there. 

'T is bonny May ; and I to-day 

Am wrinkled seventy-four, 
Still I enjoy, as when a boy, 

Much that has gone before. 

Is it the leaves and trees, or sheaves 

Of yellow, ripened grain. 
Which wake to me, in memory, 

My boyhood's days again? 

These seem to say 'tis bonny May, 

As when they sweetly grew. 
And gave their yield, in wood and field, 

To me, when life was new. 

But nought beside — ah, woe betide! — 

Which grew with me is here — 
The home, the hall, the mill, the all 

Which young life holds so dear. 

The school - house, sj^ring, and little thing. 

With eyes so bright and blue, 
Who'd steal away with me and play 

When school's dull hours were through, 

Are memories now ; and yet, oh ! how 

It seems but yesterday 
Since I was there, with that sweet dear. 

In the wild. wood at play. 

The hill was steep where we would leap; 

The grape-vine swing hung high. 
And I would throw the swing up so 

That, startled, she would cry. 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 97 

But though she cried, she still relied 

(And seemed to have no fear) 
On me to hold the swing, and told 

Me " not to frighten her." 

But I was wild, and she no child, 

And not afraid, I deemed ; 
So tossed as high the swing as I 

Could — when she fell and screamed. 



She was not harmed ; but I, alarmed, 

Ran quickly to assist, 
And lifted her, all pale with fear, 

Within my arms, and kissed 

Her pallid cheek, ere she could speak: 

But I had seen, you know, 
(Ah ! what of this ? that sight and kiss 

Was fifty years ago,) 

That little boot and pretty foot. 

So neatly formed and small — 
The swelling calf, and stifled laugh — 

How I remember all ! 

That lovely one has long since gone, 

Is dust, and only dust, now ; 
Yet I recall that swing and fall. 

As though it had been just now. 

Take these lines, reader, if you please, as an evidence of how the 
memories growing out of the associations of boyhood's school-days 
endure through life. This association of the sexes operates as a 
restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. 
Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some 
old, wrinkied duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a 
sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has 
soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the hap- 
piness she witnesses in wedded life, and which is ever present all 
around her. Her warnings are in violation of nature. She has for- 
gotten she was ever young or inspired with the feelings and hopes of 
youth. Men are monsters, and marriage a hell upon earth. Girls 
9 O 



98 THE MEMORIES OF 

will not believe this, and will get married. How much better, then, 
that they should cultivate, in association, the generous and natural 
feelings of the heart, and during the period allotted by nature for 
the growth of the feelings natural to the human bosom, as well as to 
the growth of the person and mind, than to be told what they should 
be by one disappointed of all the fruits of them, and hating the 
world because she is ! It is the mother who should form the senti- 
ments and direct the conduct of daughters, and in their teachings 
should never forget that nature is teaching also. Let their lessons 
always teach the proper indulgences of nature, as well as the proper 
and prudent restraints to the natural feelings of the human heart, and 
so deport themselves toward their daughters from infancy as to win 
their confidence and affection. The daughters, when properly 
trained, will always come with their little complaints in childhood, 
and seek consolation, leaning upon the parent's knee, and, with 
solicitude, look up into the parental face for sympathy and advice. 
Home-teaching and home-training makes the proper woman. When 
this is properly attended to, there needs no boarding-school or 
female-college finish, which too frequently uproots every virtuous 
principle implanted by the careful and affectionate teaching of pious, 
gentle, and intelligent mothers. But few mothers, who are them- 
selves properly trained, forget nature in the training and education 
of their daughters ; and a truly natural woman is a blessing to society 
and a crown of glory to her husband. I mean by a natural training 
a knowledge of herself, as well as a knowledge of the offices of life 
and the domestic duties of home. Every woman in her girlhood 
should learn from her mother the mission and destinies of woman, 
as well as what is due to society, to their families, to themselves, and 
to God. The woman who enters life with a knowledge of what life 
is, and what is due to her and from her in all the relations of life, 
has a thousand chances for happiness through life unknown to the 
belle of the boarding-school, who, away from home influences, is 
artificially educated to be in all things prominent before -the world, 
and entirely useless in the discharge of domestic duties. She may 
figure as the lady-president or vice-president of charitable associa- 
tions, or the lady-president of some prominent or useless society ; but 
never as a dutiful, devoted wife, or affectionate, instructive mother to 
her children. Her household is managed by servants, and about her 
home nothing evinces the neat, provident, and attentive housewife. 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 99 

The whole system of education, as practised by the Protestants of 
the United States, is wrong ; religious prejudice prevents their learn- 
ing from the Catholics, and particularly from the Jesuit Catholics, 
who are far in advance of their Protestant brethren. They learn 
from the child as they teach the child. In the first place, none are" 
permitted to teach who are not by nature, as well as by education, 
qualified to teach; nature must give the gentleness, the kindness, and 
the patience, with the capacity to impart instruction. They learn, 
first, the child's nature, the peculiarities of temper, and fashion 
these to obedience and affection ; they first teach the heart to love — 
not fear; they warn against the evils of life — teach the good, and 
the child's duties to its parents, to its brothers and sisters, to its 
teachers, to its playmates, and to its God. When the heart is mel- 
lowed and yields obedience in the faithful discharge of these duties, 
and the brain sufficiently mature^ to comprehend the necessity of 
them, then attention is directed to the mind ; its capacities are 
learned and known, and it is treated as this knowledge teaches is 
proper : it is, as the farmer knows, the soil of his cultivation, and is 
prepared by careful tillage before the seed is sown. The vision of 
the child's mind is by degrees expanded ; the horizon of its knowl- 
edge is enlarged, and still the heart's culture goes on in kindness 
and affection. The pupil has learned to love the teacher, and 
receives with alacrity his teaching ; he goes to him, without fear, 
for information on every point of duty in morals, as on every diffi- 
cult point of literary learning. He knows he will be received 
kindly, and dealt with gently. Should he err, he is never rebuked 
in public, nor harshly in private ; the teacher is aggrieved, and in 
private he kindly complains to the ofi"ender, whose love for his pre- 
ceptor makes him to feel, and repent, and to err no more. All this 
is only known to the two; his school - fellows never know, and 
have no opportunity for triumph or raillery. Thus taught from the 
cradle, principles become habits ; and on these, at maturity, he is 
launched upon the world, with every safeguard for his future life. 
So with the girl. With the experience of forty-five years, the writer 
has never known a vicious, bad woman, wife, or mother trained in a 
Jesuit convent, or reared by an educated Catholic mother. 

The daughters of the pioneers of Georgia's early settlements 
received a home education ; at least, in the duties of domestic life. 
In the discharge of these duties, they gained robust constitutions and 






lOO THE MEMORIES OF 

vigorous health ; they increased the butcher's bill at the expense of 
the doctor's; and such women were the mothers of the men who 
have made a history for their country, for themselves and their 
mothers. I may be prolix and prosaic, but I love to remember the 
mothers of fifty years ago — she who gave birth to Lucius Q. C. 
and Mirabeau B. Lamar, to William C. Dawson, Bishop George 
Pierce, Alexander Stuart, Joseph Lumpkin, and glorious Bob 
Toombs. I knew them all, and, with affectionate delight, remem- 
ber their virtues, and recall the social hours we have enjoyed 
together, when they were matrons, and I the companion of their 
sons. And now, when all are gone, and time is crowding me to the 
grave, the nobleness of their characters, the simplicity of their bear- 
ing in the discharge of their household duties, and the ingenuous- 
ness of their manners in social intercourse, is a cherished, venerated 
memory. None of these women were ever in a boarding-school, 
never received a lesson in the art of entering a drawing-room or 
captivating a beau. They were sensible, modest, and moral women, 
and their virtues live after them in the exalted character of their 
illustrious sons. Their literary education in early life was, of neces- 
sity, neglected, because of the want of opportunities ; but in the 
virtues and duties of life, they were thoroughly educated ; and none 
of these, or any of their like, was ever Mrs. President or Secretary 
of any pretentious or useless society or association. 

The little education or literature they acquired was in the old log 
school-house, where boys and girls commingled as pupils under the 
teaching of some honest pedagogue, who aspired to teach only read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic, in a simple way. It must not be sup- 
posed, from the foregoing remarks, that I object to female educa- 
tion ; on the contrary, I would have every woman an educated 
woman. But I would have this education an useful and proper edu- 
cation ; one not wholly ornamental and of no practical use, but 
one obtained at home, and under the parental care and influence — 
such an one as made Mrs. Ripley, of Concord, Massachusetts, 
the wonder and admiration of every sensible man. She who studied 
La Place's Mecanique Celeste when she was making biscuit for her 
breakfast, and who solved a problem in the higher mathematics when 
darning her stockings ; an education where the useful may be taught 
and learned to grace the ornamental — where the harp and piano 
shall share with the needle and the cooking-stove, and the pirouettes 



FIFTY YEARS. lOI 

of the dancing-master shall be only a step from the laundry and the 
kitchen. 

The duties of wives and mothers are to home, husband, and chil- 
dren ; and this includes all of woman's duty to the country, and in 
the intelligent and faithful discharge of which the great ends of life 
are subserved. Good neighborhood, good government, and happy 
communities secure the implanting and cultivation of good princi- 
ples, and the proper teaching of proper duties. The wise direction 
of literary education to sons and to daughters, all comes within the 
range of home, and home duties especially incumbent upon mothers. 
The domestic duties and domestic labors should be a prime con- 
sideration in the education of daughters. The association of the 
mother and child from birth, until every principle which is to guide 
and govern it through life is implanted, makes it the duty of the 
mother to know the right, and to teach it, too. Example and pre- 
cept should combine ; and this necessity compels a constant watch, 
not only over the child's, but over the mother's language and con- 
duct. All these duties imply a close devotion to home : for here is 
the germ which is to grow into good or into evil, as it is nursed and 
cultivated, or wickedly neglected. Begin at the beginning, if you 
would accomplish well your work ; and to do this, application and 
assiduity are indispensable ; and these are duties only to be dis- 
charged at home. They admit of a relaxation of time sufficient for 
every social duty exacted by society, if that society is such as it 
should be; and if not, it should neither occupy time nor attention. 

In this is comprised all woman's duties, and they are paramount ; 
for upon their successful application depend the well - being of 
society and the proper and healthful administration of wise and 
salutary laws. The world is indebted to woman for all that is good 
and great. Let every woman emulate Cornelia, the Roman mother, 
and, when a giddy, foolish neighbor runs to her to exhibit newly 
purchased jewels, be found, like the Roman matron, at her tambour- 
work ; and like her, too, when her boys from school shall run to 
embrace her, say to the thoughtless one, "These are my jewels ! " 
and Rome will not alone boast of her Gracchi and their incompara- 
ble mother. 

The duties of home cultivate reflection and stimulate to virtue. 
For this reason, women are more pious than men ; and for this 
reason, too, they are more eminent in purity. Contact with the 
9* 



I02 THE MEMORIES OF 

domestic circle does not contaminate or corrupt, as the baser contact 
with the world is sure to do. 

The home circle is select and chaste — the promiscuous inter- 
mingling with the world meretricious and contaminating. The 
mother not trained to the appreciation and discharge of the domestic 
duties, was never the mother of a great representative mind ; because 
she is incapable of imparting those stern principles of exalted 
morality and fixity of purpose essential in forming the character of 
such men. The mother of Cincinnatus was a farmer's wife ; of 
Leonidas, a shepherdess ; and the mothers of Washington, Webster, 
Clay, Calhoun, William H. Crawford, and Andrew Jackson were all 
the wives of farmers — rural and simple in their pursuits, distin- 
guished for energy and purity; constant in their principles, and 
devoted to husband, home, and children. They never dreamed it 
was woman's vocation or duty to go out into the world and mingle in 
its strifes and contentions — but at home, to view them, reflect upon 
( their consequences to society, and upon the future of their sons and 
daughters, and warn them what to emulate and what to shun. They, 
as did their husbands, felt the necessity of preserving that delicacy 
of thought and action which is woman's ornament, and which is 
more efficient in rebuking licentiousness and profligacy in the young 
and the old than all the teaching of the schools without such exam- 
ple. Such were the mothers of the great and the good of our land, 
and such the mothers of those men now prominent and distinguished 
in the advocacy and support of the great principles of natural rights 
and humanity. 

It is a mooted question whether the purposes of human life 
demand a high, classical education among the masses ; or whether 
the general happiness is promoted by such education. In the study 
of the human mind in connection with human wants, we are con- 
tinually met with difficulties arising from the want of education ; and 
quite as frequently with those resulting from education. So much 
so, that we hear from every wise man the declaration that as many 
minds are ruined by over-education as from the want of education. 

Man's curse is to labor. This labor must of necessity be divided 
to subserve the wants of society — and common sense would teach 
that each should be educated as best to enable him to perform that 
labor which may fall to his lot in life. But who shall determine this 
lot? Every day's experience teaches the observant and thinking 



FIFTY YEARS. IO3 

man that no one individual is uselessly born. To deny this propo- 
sition would be to call in question the wisdom and goodness of the 
Creator. Every one possesses proclivities for some one avocation, 
and should be educated for its pursuit. This is manifested in very 
early life ; in some much more palpably than in others. This is 
always the case when the aptitude is decisive. In such cases this 
idiosyncrasy will triumph over every adverse circumstance, educa- 
tional or otherwise ; but in the less palpable, it will not ; and the 
design of nature may, and indeed constantly is, disappointed, and 
improper education and improper pursuits given. In these pursuits 
or callings, the person thus improperly placed there never succeeds 
as he would had his bent or mental inclination been observed, and 
his education directed to it, and he given to its pursuit. Such per- 
sons labor through life painfully ; they have no taste or inclination 
for the profession, business, or trade in which they are engaged ; its 
pursuit is an irksome, thankless labor ; while he who has fallen into 
nature's design, and is working where his inclinations lead, labors 
happily, because he labors naturally. These inclinations the parent 
or guardian should observe ; and when manifested, should direct the 
education for the calling nature has designed. Idiosyncrasies are 
transmissible or inherited. In old and populous communities, where 
every pursuit or profession is full, the father generally teaches his 
own to his son or sons. Where this has extended through three or 
four generations, the proclivity is generally strongly marked, and in 
very early childhood made manifest. Thus, in the third or fourth 
generation, where all have been blacksmiths, the child will be born 
with the muscles of the right arm more developed than those of the 
left, and the first plaything he demands is a hammer. So, where a 
family have been traders, will the offspring naturally discover an 
aptness for bargaining and commerce. This is illustrated in the 
instincts of the Jews, a people of extraordinary brain and wonder- 
ful tenacity of purpose. Five thousand years since, a small fragment 
of the Semitic race, residing in Mesopotamia between the waters of 
the Euphrates and the Tigris, consisting of two families, came into 
the land of Canaan, in Asia Minor ; from them have descended the 
people known as Jews. The country over which they spread, and 
which is known as Judea, is not more than four hundred miles long 
by two hundred and fifty in breadth, situated between two populous 
and powerful empires, the Assyrian and Egyptian, who, waging war 



I04 THE MEMORIES OF 

too frequently, made the land of Judea their battle - field, and its 
people the objects of persecution and oppression. The earnings of 
their labor were deemed legitimate prey by both, and taken wherever 
found : they were led into captivity by the Assyrians and by the 
Egyptians, enslaved, and denied the legal right to possess the soil — 
which, to the everlasting disgrace of Christian Europe, was a restric- 
tion upon this wonderful people until within the present century. A 
blind bigotry would have blotted them from the face of the earth, but 
for that energy, talent, and enterprise possessed by them in a superior 
degree to any people upon the globe. Inspired by a sublime belief 
that they were the chosen people of God, no tyranny nor oppression 
could subdue their energies. They prayed and labored, went for- 
ward with untiring determination, upheld by their faith, and always, 
under the direst distress, found comfort from this belief and the fruits 
of incessant labor. The soil of their loved Canaan was barren, and 
yielded grudgingly to the most persistent labor. This drove them to 
trade, and an extended intercourse with the world. Without a national 
government of sufficient power to protect them when robbed by the 
people or the governments surrounding their own, they were com- 
pelled, for self-protection, to resort to every means of concealing the 
earnings of their enterprise and superior knowledge and skill from 
Christian and pagan alike. They gave value to the diamond, that 
in a small stone, easy of concealment, immense wealth might be 
hidden. They invented the bill of exchange, by which they could 
at pleasure transfer from one country to another their wealth, and 
avoid the danger of spoliation from the hand of power and intoler- 
ance. Without political or civil rights in any but their own country, 
they were compelled to the especial pursuit of commerce for centu- 
ries, and we now see that seven-tenths of all Jews born, as naturally 
turn to trade and commerce as the infant to the breast. It has 
become an instinct. 

To these persecutions the world is probably indebted for the 
developments of commerce — the bringing into communication the 
nations of the earth for the exchange of commodities necessary to 
the use and comfort of each other, not of the growth or production 
of each, enlarging the knowledge of all thus communicating, and 
teaching that civilization which is the enlightenment and the bless- 
ing of man — ameliorating the savage natures of all, and teaching 
that all are of God, and equally the creatures of His love and pro- 



. FIFTY YEARS. I05 

tection ; and leading also to that development of mind in the Israelite 
which makes him conspicuous to-day above any other race in the great 
attributes of mind — directing the policy of European governments — 
first at the Bar, first in science, first in commerce, first in wealth — 
preserving the great traits of nationality without a nation, and giving 
tone, talent, wealth, and power to all. 

A few men only are born to think. Their minds expand with 
education, and their usefulness is commensurate with it. This few 
early evince a proclivity so strong for certain avocations as to enable 
those who have the direction of their future to educate them for this 
pursuit. This proclivity frequently is so overpowering as to prompt 
the possessor, when the early education has been neglected, to edu- 
cate himself for this especial idiosyncrasy. This was the case with 
Newton — with Stevenson, the inventor of the locomotive-engine, 
who, at twenty years of age, was ignorant even of his letters. Ark- 
wright was a barber, and almost entirely illiterate when he invented 
the spinning-jenny. Train, the inventor of the railroad, was, at the 
time of its invention, a coal-heaver, and entirely illiterate. 

These cases are rare, however. The great mass of mankind are 
born to manual labor, and only with capacities suited for it. To 
attempt to cultivate such minds for eminent purposes would be folly. 
Even supposing they could be educated — which is scarcely sup- 
posable, for it would seem a contravention of Heaven's fiat — they 
could no more apply this learning, which would simply be by rote, 
than they could go to the moon. Such men are not unfrequently 
met with, and are designated, by common consent, learned fools. 
Nature points out the education they should receive. In like manner 
with those of higher and nobler attributes, educate them for their 
pursuits in life. It requires not the same education to hold a plough, 
or drive an ox, that it does to direct the course of a ship through a 
trackless sea, or to calculate an eclipse ; and what is essential to the 
one is useless to the other. — But I am wandering away from the pur- 
pose of this work. Turning back upon the memories of fifty years 
ago, and calling up the lives and the histories of men, and women 
too, I have known, I was led into these reflections, and ere I was 
aware they had stolen from my pen. 

The rude condition of a country is always imparted to the charac- 
ter of its people, and out of this peculiarity spring the rough sports 
and love of coarse jokes and coarse humor. No people ever more 



I06 THE MEMORIES OF 

fully verified this truth than the Georgians, and to-day, even among 
her best educated, the love of fun is a prevailing trait. Her tradi- 
tions are full of the practical jokes and the practical jokers of fifty 
years ago. The names of Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Bacon, and 
Longstreet will be remembered in the traditions of fun as long as 
the descendants of their compatriots continue to inhabit the land. 
The cock-fight, the quarter-race, and the gander-pulling are tradi- 
tions now, and so is the fun they gave rise to ; and I had almost said, 
so is the honesty of those who were participants in these rude sports. 
Were they not more innocent outlets to the excessive energies of a 
mercurial and fun-loving people than the faro-table and shooting- 
gallery of to-day ? Every people must have their amusements and 
sports, and these, unrestrained, will partake of the character of the 
people and the state of society. Sometimes the narrow prejudices 
of bigoted folly will inveigh against these, and insist upon their 
restraint by law ; and these laws, in many of the States, remain upon 
the statute-book a rebuking evidence of the shameless folly of fanat- 
ical ignorance. Of these, the most conspicuous are the blue-laws of 
Connecticut, and the more absurd and criminal laws of Massachusetts 
against amusements not only necessary, but healthful and innocent. 
Even in the present advanced state of knowledge and civilization, 
do we occasionally hear ranted from the pulpit denunciations of 
dancing, as a sinful and God-offending amusement. Such men 
should not be permitted to teach or preach — it is to attenuate folly 
and fanaticism, to circumscribe the happiness of youth, and belie 
the Bible. 

The emigrants to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia were all per- 
sons of like character, combining a mixture of English, Irish, and 
Scotch blood. They were enterprising, daring, and remarkable for 
great good sense. Rude from the want of education and association 
with a more polished people, they were nevertheless high-principled 
and full of that chivalrous spirit which prompts a natural courtesy, 
courts danger, and scorns the little and mean — open-handed in 
their generos*ity, and eminently candid and honest in all their inter- 
course and dealings with their fellow-men. These elements, col- 
lected from various sections, combined to form new communities in 
the wild and untamed regions. In their conflicts with the savages 
were shown a daring fearlessness and a high order of military talent 
in very many of the prominent leaders of the different settlements. 



1 



FIFTY YEARS. lO/ 

They had no chronicler to note and record their exploits, and they 
exist now only in the traditions of the country. 

The names of Shelby and Kenton, of Kentucky ; of Davidson 
and Jackson, of Tennessee; of Clarke, Mathews, and Adams, of 
Georgia; Dale, of Alabama, and Claiborne, of Mississippi, live in 
the memory of the people of their States, together with those of 
Tipton, Sevier, Logan, and Boone, and will be in the future history 
of these States, with their deeds recorded as those whose enterprise, 
energy, and fearlessness won from the wilderness and the savage 
their fertile and delightful lands, to be a home and a country for 
their posterity. 

The children of such spirits intermarrying, could but produce 
men of talent and enterprise, and women of beauty, intelligence, and 
virtue. In the veins of these ran only streams of blue blood — such 
as filled the veins of the leaders of the Crusades — such as warmed 
the hearts of the O'Neals and O'Connors, of Wallace and Bruce, 
and animated the bosoms of the old feudal barons of England, who 
extorted the great charter of human liberty from King John. There 
was no mixture of the pale Saxon to taint or dilute the noble current 
of the Anglo-Norman blood which flowed through and fired the 
hearts of these descendants of the nobility and gentry of Britain. 
They were the cavaliers in chivalry and daring, and despised, as 
their descendants despised, the Roundheads and their descendants, 
with their cold, dissembling natures, hypocritical in religion as 
faithless in friendship, without one generous emotion or ennobling 
sentiment. 

It is not remarkable that conflict should ensue between races so 
dissimilar in a struggle to control the Government: true to the 
instincts of race, each contended for that which best suited their 
genius and wants ; and not at all remarkable that all the generous 
gallantry in such a conflict should be found with the Celt, and all 
the cruel rapacity and meanness with the Saxon. Their triumph, 
through the force of numbers, was incomplete, until their enemies were 
tortured by every cruelty of oppression, and the fabric of the Gov- 
ernment dashed to atoms. This triumph can only be temporary. 
The innate love of free institutions, universal in the heart of the Celtic 
Southerner, will yet unite all the races to retrieve the lost. This done, 
victory is certain. 

The descendants of these pioneers have gone out to people the 



I08 THE MEMORIES OF 

extended domain reaching around the Gulf, and are growing into 
strength, without abatement of the spirit of their ancestors. Very 
soon time and their energies will repair the disasters of the recent 
conflict ; and reinvigorated, the shackles of the Puritan shall restrain 
no longer, when a fierce democracy shall restore the Constitution, 
and with it the liberty bequeathed by their ancestors. 

With this race, fanaticism in religion has never known a place. 
Rational and natural, they have ever worshipped with the heart and 
the attributes of their faith. Truth, sincerity, love, and mercy have 
ever marked their characters. Too honest to be superstitious, and 
too sincere to be hypocrites, the concentrated love of freedom 
unites the race, and the hatred of tyranny will stimulate the blood 
which shall retrieve it from the dominion of the baser blood now 
triumphant and rioting in the ruin they have wrought. 

In the beginning of the settlements, and as soon as fears of the 
inroads from the savages had subsided, attention was given to the 
selection of separate and extended homes over the country, to the 
opening of farms, and their cultivation. The first consideration was 
food and raiment. All of this was to be the production of the 
farm and home industry : grain enough was to be grown to serve 
the wants of the family for bread, and to feed the stock ; for this 
was to furnish the meat, milk, and butter. Cotton enough to serve 
the wants of families, together with the wool from the flock, and 
some flax, were of prime consideration. All of this was prepared 
and manufactured into fabrics for clothing and bedding at home. 
The seed from the cotton was picked by hand ; for, as yet, Whit- 
ney had not given them the cotton-gin. This work was imposed 
most generally upon the children of families, white and black, as a 
task at night, and which had to be completed before going to bed ; 
an ounce was the usual task, which was weighed and spread before 
the fire ; for it was most easily separated from the seed when warm 
and dry. Usually some petty rewards stimulated the work. In 
every family it was observed and commented upon, that these re- 
wards excited the diligence of the white children, but were without 
a corresponding effect upon the black ; and any one who has ever 
controlled the negro knows that his labor is only in proportion to 
the coercion used to enforce it. His capacity, physically, is equal 
to the white ; but this cannot be bought, or he persuaded to exert it 
of himself, and is given only through punishment, or the fear of it. 



FIFTY YEARS. IO9 

The removal of restraint is to him a license to laziness ; and the 
hope of reward, or the cravings of nature, will only induce him to 
labor sufficiently to supply these for immediate and limited relief. 

Stock of every kind except horses was left to find a support in the 
forest, and at that time, when their range was unlimited, they found 
it in abundance. Increasing wants stimulated the cultivation of a 
market crop to supply them, and indigo and tobacco were first 
resorted to. Tobacco was the principal staple, and the method of 
its transportation was extraordinary. As at the present day in Ken- 
tucky, it was pressed into very large hogsheads. Upon these were 
pinned large wooden felloes, forming the circle of a wheel around 
the hogshead at either end, and in the centre of each head a large 
pin was inserted. Upon these pins were attached shafts or thills, as 
to a cart, and to these teams, and thus the hogshead was rolled along 
rough roads and through streams for sometimes ninety miles to 
Augusta, for a market. When sold, the shafts were reserved, and 
upon these was then erected a sort of box, into which the few articles 
purchased were placed, and dragged home. These articles almost 
universally consisted of some iron and steel, and a little coffee and 
sugar, and sometimes a quarter of a pound of tea — universally 
termed store-tea, to distinguish it from that made from the root of 
the sassafras and the leaf of the cassia or tepaun-bush. 

Cotton was, to some little extent, cultivated near the seAboard in 
Georgia and South Carolina, and cleaned of the seeds by a machine 
similar to that used at the present day for preparing the sea-island 
cotton for market. This was a tedious and troublesome method, 
and was incapable of doing the work to any very great extent. 
Indigo, of a superior quality to the American, was being produced in 
British India and Central America, and the competition was reducing 
the price to the cost of production. The same difficulty attended 
the growing of tobacco. Virginia and Maryland, with their abund- 
ance of labor, were competing, and cheapening the article to a price 
which made its production unprofitable. At this juncture, Whitney 
invented the cotton-gin, and the growth of cotton as a marketable 
crop commenced upon a more extended scale. In a few years it 
became general — each farmer growing more or less, according to 
his means. Some one man, most able to do so, erected a gin-house, 
first in a county, then in each neighborhood. These either pur- 
chased in the seed the cotton of their neighbors, or ginned it and 
10 



no THE M E MORI ES OF 

packed it for a certain amount of toll taken from the cotton. This 
packing was done in round bales, and by a single man, with a heavy 
iron bar, and was a most laborious and tedious method ; and the 
packages were in the most inconvenient form for handling and trans- 
portation. 

Up to this time the slave-trade had been looked upon most unfa- 
vorably by the people of the South. Among the first sermons I 
remember to have heard, was one depicting the horrors of this trade. 
I was by my grandmother's side at Bethany, in Greene county, and, 
though a child, I remember, as if of yesterday, the description of 
the manner of capturing the African in his native wilds — how the 
mother and father were murdered, and the boys and the girls borne 
away, and how England was abused for the cruel inhumanity of the 
act. Although unused to the melting mood, the old lady wiped 
from her eyes a tear, whether in sorrow or sympathy for outraged 
humanity, or in compliment to the pathos and power of her favorite 
preacher, I was too young to know or have an opinion. I remem- 
ber well, however, that she cried, for she pinched me most unmer- 
cifully for laughing at her, and at home spanked me for crying. 
Dear old grandmother ! but yesterday I was at your grave, where 
you have slept fifty-two years, and if I laughed above thy mould at 
the memory of the many bouts we had more than sixty years ago, 
and, from the blue bending above, thy spirit looked down in wrath 
upon the unnatural outrage, be appeased ere I come ; for I should 
fear to meet thee, even in heaven, if out of humor ! The roses 
bloomed above you — sweet emblems of thy purity and rest — and 
there, close by you, were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, 
around the roots of which you gathered the rods of my reformation ; 
for I was a truant child. You meant it all for my good, no doubt ; 
but to me it was passing through purgatory then, to merit a future 
good in time. Ah ! how well I remember it — all of it. Requiescat 
in pace. I had almost irreverently said, "Rest, cat, in peace." 

It was at this period that the competition for accumulating money 
may be said to have commenced in Middle Georgia. Labor became 
in great demand, and the people began to look leniently upon the 
slave-trade. The marching of Africans, directly imported, through 
the country for sale, is a memory of sixty-five years ago. The 
demand had greatly increased, and, with this, the price. The trade 
was to cease in 1808, and the number brought over was daily aug- 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. Ill 

meriting, to hasten to make from the traffic as much money as pos- 
sible before this time should arrive. The demand, however, was 
greater than could be supplied. From house to house they were 
carried for sale. They were always young men and women, or 
girls and boys, and their clothing was of the simplest kind. That 
of the men and boys consisted of drawers, only reaching midway the 
thigh, from the waist. The upper portions of the person and the 
lower extremities were entirely nude. The females wore a chemise 
reaching a few inches below the knee, leaving bare the limbs. This 
was adopted for the purpose of exposing the person, as much as 
decency would permit, for examination, so as to enable the pur- 
chaser to determine their individual capacity for labor. This exam- 
ination was close and universal, beginning with an inspection of the 
teeth, which in these young savages were always perfect, save in 
those where they had been filed to a point in front. This was not 
uncommon with the males. It was then extended to the limbs, and 
ultimately to the entire person. They were devoid of shame, and 
yielded to this inspection without the slightest manifestation of 
offended modesty. At first they were indifferent to cooked food, 
and would chase and catch and eat the grasshoppers and lizards with 
the avidity of wild turkeys, and seemed, as those fowls, to relish 
these as their natural food. 

From such is descended the race which our Christian white 
brothers of the North have, in their devotion to their duty to God 
and their hatred to us, made masters of our destiny. Our faith in 
the justice and goodness of the same Divine Being bids us believe 
this unnatural and destructive domination will not be permitted to 
endure for any lengthy period. Could the curtain which veiled out 
the future sixty years ago, have been lifted, and the vision of those 
then subduing the land been permitted to pierce and know the^resent 
of their posterity, they would then have achieved a separation from 
our puritanical oppressors, and built for themselves and their own 
race, even if in blood, a separate government, and have made it as 
nature intended it should be to this favored land — a wise and power- 
ful one. 

Sooner or later these intentions of Divine wisdom are consummated. 
The fallible nature of man, through ignorance or the foolish indul- 
gence of bad passions in the many, enable the few to delude and 
control the many, and to postpone for a time the inevitable ; but as 



112 THE MEMORIES OF 

assuredly as time endures, nature's laws work out natural ends. 
Generations may pass away, perhaps perish from violence, and others 
succeed with equally unnatural institutions, making miserable the 
race, until it, like the precedent, passes from the earth. Yet these 
great laws work on, and in the end triumph in perfecting the Divine 
will. 

To the wise and observant this design of the Creator is ever 
apparent ; to the foolish and wicked, never. 

John Wesley had visited Savannah, and travelled through the dif- 
ferent settlements then in embryo, teaching the tenets and introducing 
the simple worship of the church of his founding, after a method estab- 
lished by himself, and which gave name and form to the sect, now, 
and almost from its incipiency known as Methodist, This organiza- 
tion and the tenets of its faith were admirably suited to a rude people, 
and none perhaps could have been more efficient in forming and 
improving such morals. Unpretending, simple in form, devoid of 
show or ceremony, it appealed directly to the purer emotions of our 
nature, and through the natural devotion of the heart lifted the mrnd 
to the contemplation and inspired the soul with the love of God. 
Its doctrines, based upon the purest morality, easily comprehensible, 
and promising salvation to all who would believe, inspiring an 
enthusiasm for a pure life, were natural, and naturally soon became 
wide-spread, and as the writer believes, has done more in breaking 
away the shackles of ignorance and debasing superstition from the 
mind, than any other system of worship or doctrine of faith taught by 
man ; and to this, in a great degree, is due the freedom of thought, in- 
dependence of feeling and action, chivalrous bearing, and high honor 
of the Southern people. Inculcating as it does the simple teachings 
of the gospel of Christ, — to live virtuously — do no wrong — love thy 
neighbor as thyself, and unto all do as you would be done by, — a 
teaching easy of comprehension, and which, when sternly enforced by 
a pure and elevated public sentiment, becomes the rule of conduct, 
and society is blessed with harmony and right. This moral power is 
omnipotent for good, concentrating communities into one without 
divisions or dissensions, to be wielded for good at once and at all 
times. Nothing evil can result from such concentration of opinions 
being directed by the vicious and wicked, so long as the moral of 
this faith shall control the mind and heart. 

Camp-meetings, an institution of this church, and which were first 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 1 1 3 

commenced in Georgia, are a tradition there now. Here and there 
tlirough the country yet remains, in ruinous decay, the old stand or 
extemporized pulpit from which the impassioned preacher addressed 
the assembled multitude of anxious listeners ; and around the square 
now overgrown with brush -wood and forest - trees, prostrate and 
rotten, the remains of the cabin tents may be seen, where once 
the hospitality of the owners and worshippers was dispensed with a 
heartiness and sincerity peculiar to the simple habits, and honest, • 
kindly emotions of a rude and primitive people. 

How well do I remember the first of these meetings I ever 
witnessed ! I was a small lad, and rode behind my father on horse- 
back to the ground. It was sixty-five years ago. The concourse 
was large, consisting of the people of all the country around — men, 
women, and children, white and black. Around a square enclosing 
some six acres of ground, the tents were arranged — arbors of green 
boughs cut from the adjoining forest formed a shelter from the sun's 
rays. In front of all of these, shading the entrance to the tent, 
under this friendly sheltering from the heat of the sun, assembled 
the owners and the guests of each, in social and unceremonious inter- 
course. This Avas strictly the habit of the young people ; and here, 
in evening's twilight, has been plighted many a vow which has 
been redeemed by happy unions for life's journey, and to be consum- 
mated when the cold weather came. In the rear of the tents were 
temporary kitchens, presided over in most instances by some old, 
trusted aunty of ebon hue, whose pride it was to prepare the meals 
for her tent, and to hear her cooking praised by the preachers and 
the less distinguished guests of master and mistress. The sermons 
were preached in the morning, at noon, and at twilight, when all the 
multitude were summoned to the grand central stand in the square 
of the encampment by sounding a tin trumpet or ox-horn. My 
childish imagination was fired at the sight of this assemblage. My 
wonder was, whence come all these people? as converging from 
the radius around came the crowding multitude, without order and 
without confusion — the farmer and his brusque wife side by side, 
leading their flock and friends : he with an ample chair of home 
manufacture slung by his side for the wife's comfort as she devoutly 
listened to the pious brother's comforting sermon — the guests and 
the young of the family following in respectful silence, and at a 
respectful distance, all tending to the great arbor of bushes covering 
lo* H 



114 THE MEMORIES OF 

the place of worship. Over all the space of the encampment 
the under-brush had been carefully removed ; but the great forest- 
trees (for these encampments were always in a forest) were left to 
shade as well as they might the pulpit-stand and grounds. All 
around was dense forest, wild and beautiful as nature made it. 

How well the scene and the worship accorded ! There was con- 
gruity in all — the woods, the tents, the people, and the worship. 
The impressions made that day upon my young mind were renewed 
at many a camp-meeting in after years ; and so indelibly impressed 
as only to pass away with existence. 

The preacher rose upon his elevated platform, and, advancing to the 
front, where a simple plank extending from tree to tree, before him, 
formed a substitute for a table or desk, where rested the hymn-book 
and Bible, commenced the service by reading a hymn, and .then, 
line by line, repeating it, to be sung by all his congregation. 

Whoever has listened, in such a place, amidst a great multitude, 
to the singing of that beautiful hymn commencing, " Come, thou 
fount of every blessing," by a thousand voices, all in accord, and 
not felt the spirit of devotion burning in his heart, could scarcely 
be moved should an angel host rend the blue above him, and, float- 
ing through the ether, praise God in song. In that early day of 
Methodism, very few of those licensed to preach were educated men. 
They read the Bible, and expounded its great moral truths as they 
understood them. Few of these even knew that it had been in part 
originally written in the Hebrew tongue, and the other portion in 
that of the Greeks ; but he knew it contained the promise of salva- 
tion, and felt that it was his mission to preach and teach this way to 
his people, relying solely for his power to impress these wonderful 
truths upon the heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For 
this reason the sermons of the sect were never studied or written, 
and their excellence was their fervor and impassioned appeals to the 
heart and the wild imaginations of the enthusiastic and unlearned of 
the land. Genius, undisciplined and untutored by education, is fet- 
terless, and its spontaneous suggestions are naturally and powerfully 
effective, when burning from lips proclaiming the heart's enthusiasm. 
Thus extemporizing orations almost daily, stimulated the mind to 
active thought, and very many of these illiterate young Methodist 
preachers became in time splendid orators. 

It was the celebrated Charles James Fox who said to a young 



FIFTYYEARS. II5 

man just entering Parliament, if he desired to become a great orator, 
and had the genius and feeling from nature, all he had to do was to 
speak often and learn to think on his feet. It is to this practice the 
lawyer and the preacher owe the oratory which distinguish these 
above every other class of men. And yet, how few of them ever 
attain to the eminence of finished orators. Eloquence and oratory 
are by no means identical : one is the attribute of the heart, the 
other of the head ; and eloquence, however unadorned, is always 
effective, because it is born of the feelings; and there is ever a sym- 
pathy between the hearts of men, and the words, however rude and 
original, which bubble up from the heart freighted with its feelings, 
rush with electrical force and velocity to the heart, and stir to the 
extent of its capacities. Oratory, however finished, is from tlie 
brain, and is an art ; it may convince the mind and captivate the 
imagination, but never touches the heart or stirs the soul. To 
awaken feelings in others, we must feel ourselves. Eloquence is the 
volume of flame, oratory the shaft of polished ice ; the one fires to 
madness, the other delights and instructs. 

Religion is the pathos of the heart, and must be awakened from 
the heart's emotions. The imagination is the great attribute of the 
mind, gathering and creating thought and inspiring feeling. Hence, 
the peculiar system of the Methodists in their worship is the most 
efficient in proselyting, and especially with a rude, imaginative 
people. 

The camp-meeting was an admirable device for this purpose, and 
its abandonment by the sect is as foolish as would be that of a knight 
who would throw away his sword as he was rushing to battle. 
Fashion is omnipotent in religion, as in other things, and with the 
more general diffusion of education, camp-meetings have come to be 
considered as vulgar and unfashionable. To be vulgar, is to be 
common ; to be common, is to be natural. The masses, and espe- 
cially in democratic communities, must always be vulgar or com- 
mon — must always be, in the main, illiterate and rude ; and it is for 
the conversion and salvation of these multitudes the preacher should 
struggle, and in his efforts his most efficient means should be used. 

The camp-meeting, at night, when all the fire-stands are ablaze, 
and the multitude are assembled and singing, is beyond description 
picturesque : when, too, some eloquent and enthusiastic preacher 
is stimulating to intense excitement the multitude around him with 



Il6 THE MEMORIESOF 

the fervor of his words, and the wild, passionate manifestations of 
his manner, to see the crowd swaying to and fro, to hear the groans 
and sobs of the half-frenzied multitude, and, not unfrequently, the 
maddened shriek of hysterical fear, all coming up from the half- 
illuminated spot, is thrillingly exciting. And when the sermon is 
finished, to hear all this heated mass break forth into song, the wild 
melody of which floats, in the stillness of night, upon the breeze to 
the listening ear a mile away, in cadences mournfully sweet, make 
the camp-meeting among the most exciting of human exhibitions. 
In such a school were trained those great masters of pulpit oratory. 
Pierce, Wynans, Capers, and Bascomb. Whitfield was the great 
exemplar of these ; but none, perhaps, so imitated his style and 
manner as John Newland Maiifit and the wonderful Summerfield. 

Like all that is great and enduring, the Methodist Church had its 
beginning among the humble and lowly. Rocked in the cradle 
of penury and ignorance, it was firmly fixed in the foundations of 
society, whence it rose from its own purity of doctrine and simplicity 
of worship to command the respect, love, and adoption of the 
highest in the land, and to wield an influence paramount in the des- 
tinies of the people and the Government. Its ministers are now 
the educated and eloquent of the Church militant. Its institutions 
of learning are the first and most numerous all over the South, and 
it has done for female education in the South more than every other 
sect of Christians, excepting, perhaps, the Roman Catholic. In the 
cause of education its zeal is enlisted, and its organization is such as 
to bring a wonderful power to operate upon the community in every 
section of the South and West. That this will accomplish much, we 
have only to look to the antecedents of the Church to determine. 
Lake the coral insect, they never cease to labor : each comes with 
his mite and deposits it ; and, from the humblest beginning, this 
assiduity and contribution builds up great islands in the sea of igno- 
rance — rich in soil, salubrious in climate, and, finally, triumphant 
in the conceptions of the chief architect — completing for good the 
work so humbly begun. 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. I I 7 



CHAPTER IX. 

PEDAGOGUES AND DEMAGOGUES. 

Education — Colleges — School -Days — William and Mary — A Substi- 
tute — Boarding Around — Rough Diamonds — Caste — George M. 
Troup — A Scotch Indian — Alexander McGilvery — The McIntosh 
Family — Button Gwinnett — General Taylor — Matthew Talbot — 
Jesse Mercer — An Exciting Election. 

THE subject of education engaged the attention of the people of 
Georgia at a very early day subsequent to the Revolution. 
Public schools were not then thought of; probably because such a 
scheme would have been impracticable. The population was sparse, 
and widely separated in all the rural districts of the country ; and 
to have supplied all with the means of education, would have neces- 
sitated an expense beyond the power of the State. A system was 
adopted, of establishing and endowing academies in the different 
counties, at the county-seat, where young men who intended to com- 
plete a collegiate education might be taught, and the establishment 
and endowment of a college, where this education might be finished, 
leaving the rudimental education of the children of the State to be 
provided for by their parents, as best they could. Primary schools 
were gotten up in the different neighborhoods by the concentrated 
action of its members, and a teacher employed, and paid by each 
parent at so much per capita for his children. In these schools 
almost every Georgian — yes, almost every Southerner — com- 
menced his education. It was at these schools were mingled the 
sexes in pursuit of their A, B, C, and the incidents occurring here 
became the cherished memories of after life. Many a man of emi- 
nence has gone out from these schools with a better education with 
which to begin life and a conflict with the world, than is obtained 
now at some of the institutions called colleges. 

Young men without means, who had acquired sufficient of the 
rudiments of an English education, but who desired to pursue their 
studies and complete an education to subserve the purposes of the 
pursuit in life selected by them, frequently were the teachers in the 
primary schools. From this class ajose most of those men so dis- 



Il8 THE MEMORIES OF 

tinguished in her earlier history. Some were natives, and some were 
immigrants from other States, who sought a new field for their 
efforts, and where to make their future homes. Such were William 
H. Crawford, Abram Baldwin, and many others, whose names are 
now borne by the finest counties in the State — a monument to their 
virtues, talents, and public services, erected by a grateful people. 

These primitive schools made the children of every neighborhood 
familiar to each other, and encouraged a homogeneous feeling in 
the rising population of the State. This sameness of education and 
of sentiment created a public opinion more efficacious in directing 
and controlling public morals than any statutory law, or its most 
efficient administration. It promoted an esprit du corps throughout 
the country, and formed the basis of that chivalrous emprise so 
peculiarly Southern. 

The recollections of these "school -days are full of little incidents 
confirmatory of these views. I will relate one out of a thousand 
I might enumerate. A very pretty little girl of eight years, full 
of life and spirit, had incurred, by some act of childish mischief, 
the penalty of the switch — the only and universal means of correc- 
tion in the country schools. She was the favorite of a lad of twelve, 
who sat looking on, and listening to the questions propounded to his 
sweetheart, and learning the decision of the teacher, which was 
announced thus : "Well, Mary, I must punish you."7/; '^f^;, ^^/ixiniA^t^. 

All eyes were directed to William. Deliberately he l^id down 
his books, and, stepping quickly up to the teacher, said, respectfully : 
" Don't strike her. Whip me. I '11 take it for her," as he arrested 
with his hand the uplifted switch. Every eye in that little log 
school-house brightened with approbation, and, in a moment after, 
filled with tears, as the teacher laid down his rod and said : " Wil- 
liam, you are a noble boy, and, for your sake, I will excuse Mary." 
Ten years after, Mary was the wife — the dutiful, loving, happy 
wife of William ; and William, twenty years after, was a member of 
the Legislature, and then a representative in Congress, (when it was 
an honor to a gentleman to be such,) and afterwards was for years 
a Senator in the same body — one of Georgia's noblest, proudest, 
and best men. 

Can any one enumerate an instance where evil grew out of the 
early association of the sexes at school ? In the neighborhoods least 
populous, and where there were but^ few children, the pedagogue 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. I I 9 

usually divided the year into as many parts as he had pupils, and 
boarded around with each family the number of days allotted to each 
child. If he was a man of family, the united strength of the neigh- 
borhood assembled upon a certain day, and built for him a resi- 
dence contiguous to the school-house, which was erected in like 
manner. 

These buildings were primitive indeed — consisting of poles cut 
from the forest, and, with no additional preparation, notched up into 
a square pen, and floored and covered with boards split from a forest- 
tree near at hand. It rarely required more than two days to com- 
plete the cabin — the second being appropriated to the chimney, and 
the chinking and daubing ; that is, filling the interstices with billets 
of wood, and make these air-tight with clay thrown violently in, and 
smoothed over with the hand. Such buildings constituted nine- 
tenths of the homes of the entire country sixty years ago ; and in 
such substitutes for houses were born the men who have moved the 
Senate with their eloquence, and added dignity and power to the 
bench of the Supreme Court of the nation, startled the world with 
their achievements upon the battle-field, and more than one of them 
has filled the Presidential chair. 

Men born and reared under such circumstances, receive impres- 
sions which they carry through life, and their characters always dis- 
cover the peculiarities incident to such birth and rearing — rough and 
vigorous, bold and daring, and nobly independent, without polish 
or deceit, always sincere, and always honest. 

However much the intellect may be cultivated in youth — 
however much it may be distinguished for great thoughts and 
wonderful attainments, still the peculiarities born of the forest cling 
about it in all its roughness — a fit setting to the unpolished dia- 
mond of the soul. 

The rural pursuits of the country, and the necessities of the 
isolated condition of a pioneer population, which necessities are 
mainly supplied by ingenuity and perseverance on the part of each, 
creates an independence and self-reliance which enter largely into 
the formation of the general character. The institution of African 
slavery existing in the South, which came with the very first pioneer, 
and which was continually on the increase, added to this inde- 
pendence the habit of command ; and this, too, became a part of 
Southern character. The absolute control of the slave, placed by 



I20 THEMEMORIESOF 

habit and law in the will of the master, made it necessary to enact 
laws for the protection of the slave against the tyrannical cruelties 
found in some natures ; but the public sentiment was in this, as in all 
other things, more potent tlian law. Their servile dependence for- 
bade resistai>ce to any cruelty which might be imposed ; but it excited 
the general sympathy, and inspired, almost universally, a lenient 
humanity toward them. 

They were mostly born members of the household, grew up with 
the children of each family, were companions and playmates, and 
naturally an attachment was formed, which is always stronger in the 
protecting than the protected party. It was a rare instance to find 
a master whose guardian protection did not extend with the same 
intensity and effect over his slave as over his child : this, not from 
any motive of pecuniary interest, but because he was estopped by 
law from self-defence ; and, too, because of the attachment and the 
moral obligation on the master to protect his dependants. Besides, 
the community exacted it as a paramount duty. It is human to be 
attached to whatever it protects and controls ; out of this feeling 
grows the spirit of true chivalry and of lofty intent — that magna- 
nimity, manliness, and ennobling pride which has so long character- 
ized the gentlemen of the Southern States. 

Caste, in society, may degrade, but, at the same time, it elevates. 
Where this caste was distinguished by master and slave, the distinc- 
tion was most marked, because there was no intermediate gradation. 
It was the highest and the lowest. It was between the highest and 
purest of the races of the human family, and the lowest and most 
degraded ; and this relation was free from the debasing influences 
of caste in the same race. An improper appreciation of this fact 
has gone far to create with those unacquainted with negro character 
the prejudices against the institution of African slavery, and which 
have culminated in its abolition in the Southern States. 

The negro is incapacitated by nature from acquiring the high in- 
telligence of the Caucasian. His sensibilities are extremely dull, 
his perceptive faculties dim, and the entire organization of his brain 
forbids and rejects the cultivation necessary to the elimination of 
mind. With a feeble moral organization, and entirely devoid of the 
higher attributes of mind and soul so prominent in the instincts 
of tlie Caucasian, his position was never, as a slave, oppressive to 
his mind or his sense of wrong. He felt, and to himself acknowl- 



FIFTYYEARS. 121 

edged his inferiority, and submitted with alacrity to the control of 
his superior. Under this control, his moral and intellectual cultiva- 
tion elevated him : not simply to a higher position socially, but to a 
higher standard in the scale of being, and this was manifested to 
himself at the same time it demonstrated to him the natural truth 
of his inferiority. This gratified him, promoted his happiness, and 
he was contented. The same effect of the relation of master and 
servant can never follow wht- n the race is the same, or even when the 
race is but one or two degrees inferior to the dominant one. 

The influence of this relation upon the white race is marked in the 
peculiarities of character which distinguish the people of the South. 
The habit of command, where implicit obedience is to follow, enno- 
bles. The comparison is inevitable between the commander and 
him who obeys, and, in his estimation, unconsciously elevates and 
degrades. This between the white man and negro, is only felt by 
the white. The negro never dreams that he is degraded by this 
servility, and consequently he does not feel its oppression. He is 
incapable of aspiring, and manifests his pride and satisfaction by 
imitating his master as much as is possible to his nature. The white 
man is conscious of the effect upon the negro, and has no fear that 
he is inflicting a misery to be nursed in secret and sorrow, and to 
fill the negro's heart with hate. This, however, is universally the 
effect of the domination of one man over another of the same race. 
The relation was for life, and the master was responsible for the 
moral and physical well-being of his slave. His entire dependence 
makes him an object of interest and care, and the very fact of this 
responsibility cultivates kindness and tenderness toward him. But 
this is not all ; it carries with it a consciousness of superiority, and 
inspires a superior bearing. These influences are more potent in the 
formation of female than male character. The mistress is relieved 
absolutely from all menial duties, and is served by those who are 
servants for life, and compulsorily so. She is only under the obli- 
gations of humanity in her conduct toward them. They must do 
her bidding. She is not afraid to offend by giving an order, nor is 
she apprehensive of being deserted to discharge her household labor 
herself by offending them. It is their duty to please — it is their 
interest — and this is the paramount desire. The intercourse is gen- 
tle, respectful, and kind j still, there is no infringement of the barrier 
between the mistress and the servant. This habit is the source of 
II 



122 THE MEMORIES OF 

frankness and sincerity, and this release from the severity of domes- 
tic labor the fruitful source of female delicacy and refinement, so 
transcendently the attributes of character in the ladies of the South. 
It gives ease and time for improvement; for social and intellectual 
intercourse; creates habits of refinement, and a delicacy seen and 
heard in all that is done or said in refined female society in the 
South. Something, too, I suppose, is due to blood. There are 
many grades in the Caucasian race. The Anglo-Norman or Anglo- 
Celtic is certainly at the bead. They rule wherever left to the con- 
flict of mind and energy of soul. Sometimes they are conquered 
for a time, but never completely so. The great constituents of their 
natures continue to resist, and struggle up, and when the opportunity 
comes, they strike for control and supremacy — 

" And freedom's battle, once begun, 
The cause bequeathed from sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, is ever won." 

The Southern woman's soul is chivalry. From the highest to the 
humblest, the same lofty purpose, pride, and energy animate them. 
They have contrasted the free and noble with the mean and servile. 
Its magic has entered their natures and quickened their souls. In 
all there is a lofty scorn for the little and mean. The same wither- 
ing contempt for the cringing and cowardly is met in every one of 
them. Their impulses are generous, and their aspirations noble, 
with hearts as soft and tender as love, pity, and compassion can 
form. Yet in them there is, too, the fire of chivalry, the scorn of 
contempt, and the daring of her who followed her immortal brother, 
the great Palafox, at the defence of Saragossa, her native city, and, 
standing upon the dead bodies of her countrymen, snatched the 
burning match from the hand of death, and fired the cannon at the 
advancing foe, and planted Spain's standard, in defiance of the 
veterans of Soult — a rallying point for her countrymen — and saved 
Saragossa. They were born to command, and can never be slaves, 
or the mothers of slaves. 

The same influences powerfully operate in producing that bearing 
of chivalrous distinction, which is seen everywhere in the deport- 
ment of the Southern gentlemen toward ladies. They are ever 
polite, respectful, and deferential. This, however, is only one of 
many elements in the peculiar character of Southern people. Their 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 23 

piety is Christian in its character. The precepts of the Bible are 
fashioned into example in the conduct of the older members of 
society, and especially in the female portion. This is, perhaps, the 
predominant element. The Bible is the guide, not the fashion, in 
religious duty. Its doctrines are taught in purity, and in their sim- 
plicity enter into the soul, as the great constituent of character. 

The chivalrous bearing of man toward woman inspires her with 
elevated and noble sentiments — a pride and dignity conservative of 
purity in all her relations — and, reflecting these back upon society, 
producing most salutary influences. It is woman's pride to lean on 
man — to share his love and respect — to be elevated by his virtues, 
and appreciated by the world because of his honors — to be a part 
of his fame. The mother, the wife^ the sister, the relative should 
share with the husband, the son, the brother, the kinsman, in the 
world's honors, in the sufferings, sorrows, and miseries incidental 
to all. They are part and parcel of man, and partake of his nature 
and his position, as of his fortune. When man shall cease to view 
woman, and so deport himself toward her as a purer, more refined, 
and more elevated being than himself, that moment she will sink to 
his level, and then her prestige for good is gone forever. That 
delicacy, refinement, and chasteness, so restraining and so purifying 
to man in her association, is the soul of civilization — the salt of the 
earth. In its absence, no people are ever great ; for, as it is the 
spirit of man's honor, so is it a nation's glory. It must be cherished, 
for it inspires man's honor by man's chivalry. Thus she becomes 
a people's strength ; for their crown of glory is her chastity and 
angelic purity. 

These virtues distinguished the pioneer women of Middle Georgia 
sixty years ago. As their husbands were honest and brave, they 
were chaste and pious ; and from such a parentage sprang the men 
and women who have made a history for her pre-eminent among 
all her sister States. Her sons have peopled the West, and are dis- 
tinguished there for their high honor and splendid abilities ; and yet 
at home she boasts Toombs, Colt, Stephens, Hill, Johnson, Camp- 
bell, and a host of others, who are proud specimens among the 
proudest of the land. They have measured their strength with the 
proudest minds of all the Union, and won a fame unequalled, 
adorning her councils, its Cabinet, its Bench, and were the first 
everywhere. 



124 THE MEMORIES OF 

George Michael Troup, one of the most distinguished of Geor- 
gia's sons, was the son of an English gentleman, who emigrated to 
Georgia anterior to the Revolution. He married Miss Mcintosh, 
of Georgia, sister of General John Mcintosh, of Mcintosh County. 
He took no part in the Revolution. England was his mother 
country; to her he was attached, and in conscience he could not lift 
his hand in wrath against her. This course did not meet the ap- 
proval of the Mclntoshes, and he retired from the State and country. 
First, he went to England, but not contented there, he came to the 
Spanish town of Pensacola. Here he met the celebrated Indian 
chief, Alexander McGilvery, who was hostile to the Americans, and 
who invited him to take refuge in his country. McGilvery was a 
remarkable man ; his father was a Scotchman, his mother a half- 
breed ; her father was the celebrated French officer who was killed 
by his own men in 1732 at Fort Toulouse — his name was Marchand, 
— and her mother a full-blooded Creek woman. 

McGilvery supposed him an English emissary, and invited him to 
go into the Creek nation and reside with his people. From Pensa- 
cola he went to Mobile, and thence to a bluff on the Tombigbee, 
where he remained during the war. This bluff he named Mcin- 
tosh's Bluff, and it bears the name yet. Here George M. Troup 
was born. At the close of the war he returned to Georgia, and 
fixed his residence among the relatives of his wife.. The Mcintosh 
family were Highland Scotch, and partook of all the intrepidity of 
that wonderful people. They immigrated to Georgia with General 
Oglethorpe in company with a number of their countrymen, and 
for one hundred and thirty years have continued to reside in the 
county named for the first of their ancestors who settled and made 
a home in the colony of Georgia. It is a family distinguished for 
chivalry as well in Europe as in Georgia. At the commencement 
of the Revolution they at once sided with the colonists. Lachlin 
and John Mcintosh became distinguished as leaders in that pro- 
tracted and doubtful conflict, meeting in battle their kinsman in 
high command in the British army. On one occasion, when John 
Mcintosh had surrendered at the battle of Brier Creek, a British 
officer, lost to every sentiment and feeling of honor, attempted to 
assassinate him, and was only prevented from doing so by Sir ./^neas 
Mcintosh, the commander of the English army, whose promptness 
arrested the blow by interposing his own sword to receive it. 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 25 

Lachlin Mcintosh was the commander of the first regiment raised 
in Georgia to aid in the Revolution. In 1777, a difficulty arose 
between Button Gwinnett (who, upon the death of Governor Bullock, 
had succeeded him as Governor,) and Mcintosh. A duel was the 
consequence, in which Gwinnett was killed. Tradition says this dif- 
ficulty grew out of the suspicions of Mcintosh as to the fidelity of 
Gwinnett to the American cause. He was an Englishman by birth, 
and, upon the breaking out of the war, hesitated for some time as 
to the course he should pursue. This was a time when all who 
hesitated were suspected, and Gwinnett shared the common fate. 
Eventually he determined to espouse the revolutionary party, and 
was elected to the Convention, and was one of the immortal band 
who signed the Declaration of Independence emanating from that 
Convention. Until his death he was faithful and active. Mcintosh 
doubted him, and he was not a man to conceal his opinions. Mcin- 
tosh was severely wounded in the conflict. 

This family was one of remarkable spirit ; and this has descended 
to the posterity of the old cavaliers even unto this day. Colonel 
Mcintosh, who fell at Molino del Rey, in our recent war with 
Mexico, was one of this family. He had all the spirit and chivalry 
of his ancestors. I remember to have heard Generals Taylor and 
Twiggs speaking of him subsequently to his death, and felt proud, 
as a native of the State of Georgia, of the distinguished praise 
bestowed on him by these gallant veterans. General Taylor was not 
generally enthusiastic in his expressions of praise, but he was always 
sincere and truthful. On this occasion, however, he spoke warmly 
and feelingly of the honor, the gallantry, and intrepidity of his fel- 
low-soldier — his high bearing, his pride, his proficiency as an officer 
in the field, and the efficiency of his regiment, its perfection of drill 
and discipline, and coolness in battle — and, with unusual warmth, 
exclaimed: " If I had had with me at Buena Vista, Mcintosh and 
Riley, with their veterans, I would have captured or totally destroyed 
the Mexican army." 

Captain Mcintosh, of the navy, was another of this distinguished 
family. He had no superior in the navy. So was that ardent and 
accomplished officer. Colonel Mcintosh, who fell at Oak Hill, in the 
late war in Missouri. In truth, there has not been a day in one 
hundred and thirty years, when there has not been a distinguished 
son of this family to bear and transmit its name and fame to pos- 
II* 



126 THE MEMORIES OF '^^ 

terity. Through his mother, to George M. Troup descended all the 
nobler traits of the Mcintosh family. He was educated, preparatory 
to entering college, at Flatbush, Long Island. His teacher's name 
I have forgotten, but he was a remarkable man, and devoted him- 
self to the instruction of the youth intrusted to his care. He seems 
to have had a peculiar talent for inspiring a high order of ambition 
in his pupils, and of training them to a deportment and devotion to 
principle which would lead them to distinguished conduct through 
life. Governor Troup, in speaking to the writer of his early life, 
and of his school-days on Long Island, said : " There were twenty- 
one of us at this school fitting for college, and, in after life, nineteen 
of us met in Congress, the representatives of fourteen States." 

Troup, after leaving this school, went to Princeton, and graduated 
at Nassau Hall, in his nineteenth year. Returning to Savannah, he 
read law ; but possessing ample fortune, he never practised his pro- 
fession. His talents were of an order to attract attention. James 
Jackson, and most of the leading men of the day, turned to him as a 
man of great promise. The Republican party of Savannah nomi- 
nated him to represent the county of Chatham, in the Legislature of 
the State, before he was twenty-one years of age. Being constitu- 
tionally ineligible, he, of course, declined ; but as soon as he became 
eligible, he was returned, and, for some years, continued to repre- 
sent the county. From the Legislature he was transferred to Con- 
gress, where he at once became distinguished, not only for talent, 
but a lofty honor and most polished bearing. While a member of 
Congress, he married a Virginia lady, who was the mother of his 
three children. Soon after the birth of her third child, there was 
discovered aberration of mind in Mrs. Troup, which terminated in 
complete alienation. This was a fatal blow to the happiness of her 
husband. She was tenderly beloved by. him ; and his acute sensi- 
bility and high nervous temperament became so much affected as 
not only to fill him with grief, but to make all his remaining life one 
of melancholy and sorrow. He had been elected to the United 
States Senate, but, in consequence of this terrible blow, and the con- 
stant care of his afflicted lady, to which he devoted himself, he lost 
his health, and resigned. He retired to his home, and to the sad 
duties of afflicted love. 

About this time the people of Georgia became divided upon the 
political issues of the day. William H. Crawford was nominated by 



1 



FIFTY YEARS. I27 

his friends for the Presidency. This aroused his enemies' hatred, 
who organized an opposition to him in his own State. This opposi- 
tion was headed by John Clarke, his old enemy, and was aided by 
every old Federalist and personal enemy in the State. Crawford's 
friends were too confident in the popularity which had borne him to 
so many triumphs, and were slow to organize. The election of 
Governor devolved, at that time, upon the Legislature, and Clarke, 
upon the death of Governor Rabun, was announced as the candidate. 
The event of Habun's death occurred only a very short time before 
the meeting of the Legislature. Matthew Talbot, the President of the 
Senate, assumed, under the Constitution, the duties of Governor, 
but sent the message already prepared by Rabun to the Legislature, 
and immediately an election took place, whereupon Clarke was 
elected. Troup had been solicited to oppose him, but was loath to 
embark anew in political life. Ultimately he yielded, and was 
defeated by thirteen votes. The friends of Crawford were now 
alarmed, and the contest was immediately renewed, r The canvass 
was one of the most rancorous and bitter ever known in the State, 
but of this I have spoken in a former chapter. At the ensuing elec- 
tion, Troup was again a candidate. Again the contest was renewed, 
and, if possible, with increased violence and vigor. Clarke, in 
obedience to usage, had retired, and his party had put forward 
Matthew Talbot, of Wilkes County, as the competitor of Troup. 
This contest had now continued for four years, and Troup was 
elected by two votes. 

The memory of this election will never fade from the minds of 
any who witnessed it. At the meeting of the Legislature it was 
doubtful which party had the majority. Two members chosen as 
favorable to the election of Troup, were unable from sickness to 
reach the seat of Government, and it was supposed this gave the 
majority to Talbot. There was no political principle involved in 
the contest. Both professedly belonged to the Republican party. 
Both seemed anxious to sustain the principles and the ascendency of 
that party. There were no spoils. The patronage of the executive 
was literally nothing ; and yet there was an intensity of feeling 
involved for which there was no accounting, unless it was the anxiety 
of one party to sustain Mr. Crawford at home for the Presidency, 
and on the other hand to gratify the hatred of Clarke, and sustain 
Mr. Calhoun. 



128 THE MEMORIES OF 

During the period intervening between the meeting of the Legis- 
lature and the day appointed for the election, every means was 
resorted to, practicable in that day. There was no money used 
directly. There was not a man in that Legislature who would not 
have repelled with scorn a proposition to give his vote for a pecuni- 
ary consideration ; but all were open to reason, State pride, and a 
sincere desire to do what they deemed best for the honor and interest 
of the State. The friends of either candidate would have deserted 
their favorite instantly upon the fact being known that they had 
even winked at so base a means of success. Every one was tena- 
ciously jealous of his fame, and equally so of that of the State. The 
machinery of party was incomplete, and individual independence 
universal. There were a few members, whose characters forbade vio- 
lence of prejudice, and who were mild, considerate, and unimpas- 
sioned. These men were sought to be operated upon by convincing 
them that the great interests of the State would be advanced by elect- 
ing their favorite. The public services of Troup, and his stern, lofty, 
and eminently pure character, were urged by his friends as reasons 
why he should be chosen. The people of the State were becoming 
clamorous for the fulfilment of the contract between the State and 
General Government for the removal of the Indians from the terri- 
tory of the State, and Troup was urged upon the voters as being 
favorable in the extreme to this policy, and also as possessing the 
talents, will, and determination to effect this end. Finally the day 
of election arrived. The representative men of the State were assem- 
bled. It was scarcely possible to find hotel accommodations for the 
multitude. The judges of the different judicial districts, the leading 
members of the Bar, men of fortune and leisure, the prominent mem- 
bers of the different sects of the Christian Church, and especially the 
ministers of the gospel who were most prominent and influential, 
were all there. The celebrated Jesse Mercer was a moving spirit 
amidst the excited multitude, and Daniel Duffie, who, as a most intol- 
erant Methodist, and an especial hater of the Baptist Church and all 
Baptists, was there also, willing to lay down all ecclesiastical preju- 
dice, and go to heaven even with Jesse Mercer, because he was i 
Troup man. 

The Senate came into the Representative chamber at noon, to 
effect, on joint ballot, the election of Governor. The President of 
the Senate took his seat with the Speaker of the House, and in obe- 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 29 

dience to law assumed the presidency of the assembled body. The 
members were ordered to prepare their ballots to vote for the 
Governor of the State. The Secretary of the Senate called the roll 
of the Senate, each man, as his name was called, moving up to the 
clerk's desk, and depositing his ballot. The same routine was then 
gone through with on the part of the House, when the hat (for a hat 
was used) containing the ballots was handed to the President of the 
Senate, Thomas Stocks, of Greene County, who proceeded to 
count the ballots, and finding only the proper number, commenced 
to call the name from each ballot. Pending this calling the silence 
was painfully intense. Every place within the spacious hall, the 
gallery, the lobby, the committee-rooms, and the embrasures of the 
windows were all filled to crushing repletion. And yet not a word 
or sound, save the excited breathing of ardent men, disturbed the 
anxious silence of the hall. One by one the ballots were called. 
There were 166 ballots, requiring 84 to elect. When 160 bal- 
lots were counted, each candidate had 80, and at this point the 
excitement was so painfully intense that the President suspended the 
count, and, though it was chilly November, took from his pocket his 
handkerchief, and wiped from his flushed face the streaming perspi- 
ration. While this was progressing, a wag in the gallery sang out, 
" The darkest time of night is just before day." This interruption 
was not noticed by the President, who called out "Troup ! " then 
" Talbot ! " and again there was a momentary suspension. Then he 
called again, "Troup — Talbot J " "82 — 82," was whispered audi- 
bly through the entire hall. Then the call was resumed. "Troup ! " 
"A tie," said more than a hundred voices. There remained but 
one ballot. The President turned the hat up-side down, and the 
ballot fell upon the table. Looking down upon it, he called, at the 
top of his voice, "Troup!" The scene that followed was inde- 
scribable. The two parties occupied separate sides of the chamber. 
Those voting for Troup rose simultaneously from their seats, and 
one wild shout seemed to lift the ceiling overhead. Again, with 
increased vim, was it given. The lobby and the galleries joined in 
the wild shout. Members and spectators rushed into each others' 
arms, kissed each other, wept, shouted, kicked over the desks, tum- 
bled on the floor, and for ten minutes this maddening excitement 
suspended the proceedings of the day. It was useless for the pre- 
siding officer to command order, if, indeed, his feelings were suffi- 

I 



1 30 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

ciently under control to do so. When exhaustion had produced com* 
parative silence, Duffie, with the full brogue of the County Carlow 
upon his tongue, ejaculated: " O Lord, we thank Thee ! The State 
is redeemed from the rule of the Devil and John Clarke." Mercer 
waddled from the chamber, waving his hat above his great bald 
head, and shouting "Glory, glory! " which he continued until out 
of sight. General Blackshear, a most staid and grave old gentle- 
man and a most sterling man, rose from his seat, where he, through 
all this excitement, had sat silent, folded his arms upon his breast, 
and, looking up, with tears streaming from his eyes, exclaimed : 
"Now, Lord, I am ready to die!" Order was finally restored, 
and the state of the ballot stated, (Troup, 84; Talbot, 82,) when 
President Stocks proclaimed George M. Troup duly elected Gov- 
ernor of the State of Georgia for the next three years. 

This was the last election of a Governor by the Legislature. The 
party of Clarke demanded that the election should be given to the 
people. This was done, and in 1825, Troup was re-elected over 
Clarke by a majority of some seven hundred votes. It was during 
this last contest that the violence and virulence of party reached its 
acme, and pervaded every family, creating animosities which neither 
time nor reflection ever healed. 



CHAPTER X. 

INDIAN TREATIES AND DIFFICULTIES. 

The Creeks — John Quincy Adams — Hopothleyoholo — Indian Oratory 
— Sulphur Spring — Treaties Made and Broken — An Independent 
Governor — Coi.oNELS John S. McIntosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, and 
Duncan Clinch — General Gaines — Christianizing the Indians — 
Cotton Mather — Expedient and Principle — The Puritanical Snake. 

DURING the administration of Troup, a contest arose as to the 
true western boundary of the State, and the right of the State to 
the territory occupied by a portion of the Creek tribe of Indians. 
In the difficulty arising out of the sale by the Legislature of the 



FIFTYYEARS. I3I 

lands belonging to the State bordering upon the Mississippi River, 
a compromise was effected by Congress with the company purchas- 
ing, and Georgia had sold to the United States her claim to all the 
lands in the original grant to General Oglethorpe and others by the 
English Government, west of the Chattahoochee River. A part of 
the consideration was that the United Stales should, at a convenient 
time, and for the benefit of Georgia, extinguish the title of the 
Indians, and remove them from the territory occupied by them, east 
of the Chattahoochee River, to a certain point upon that stream ; 
and from this point, east of a line to run from it, directly to a point 
called Neckey Jack, on the Tennessee River. The war of 181 2 with 
Great Britain found the Creek or Alabama portion of this tribe of 
Indians allies of England. They were by that war conquered, and 
their territory wrested from them. Those of the tribe under the 
influence of the celebrated chief William Mcintosh remained 
friendly to the United States, and were active in assisting in the 
conquest of their hostile brethren. The conquered Indians were 
removed from their territory and homes, into the territory east of 
Line Creek, which was made the western boundary of the Creek 
Nation's territory. Many of them came into the territory claimed by 
Georgia as her domain. 

This war was a war of the Republican party of the United States, 
and the State of Georgia being almost unanimously Republican, her 
people felt it would be unpatriotic, at this juncture, to demand of the 
Government the fulfilment of her obligations in removing the Indians 
from her soil. The expenses of the war were onerous, and felt as a 
heavy burden by the people, and one which was incurred by Repub- 
lican policy. That party felt that it was its duty to liquidate this 
war debt as speedily as possible. To this end the sale of those con- 
quered lands would greatly contribute ; relieving, at the same time, 
the people to some extent, from the heavy taxation they had borne 
during the progress of the war. Consequently, they had not pressed 
the fulfilment of this contract upon the Government. But now the 
war debt had been liquidated — the United States treasury was 
overflowing with surplus treasure — Indian tribes were being removed 
by the purchase of their lands in the northwest, and a tide of popu- 
lation pouring in upon these lands, and threatening a powerful 
political preponderance in opposition to Southern policy and 
Southern interests. Under these circumstances, and the recom- 



132 THE MEMORIES OF 

mendation of Governor Troup, the Legislature of the State, by joint 
resolution and memorial to Congress, demanded the fulfilment of the 
contract on the part of the United States, and the immediate removal 
of the Indians. 

John Quincy Adams was at that time President of the United 
States, and, as he had ever been, was keenly alive to Northern 
interests and to Federal views. Though professing to be Republican 
in political faith, he arrayed all his influence in opposition to the 
rights of the States. In this matter he gave the cold shoulder to 
Georgia. He did not recommend a repudiation of the contract, but 
interposed every delay possible to its consummation. After some 
time, commissioners were appointed to negotiate a treaty with the 
Indians for the purchase of their claim to the lands within the 
boundaries established by the sale to the United States — or so much 
thereof as was in possession of the Creek tribe. To this there was 
very serious opposition, not only from that portion of the tribe which 
formerly allied themselves to Great Britain, but from missionaries 
found in the Cherokee country, and from Colonel John Crowell, who 
was United States agent for the Creek Indians. These Indians were 
controlled by their chief, Hopothleyoholo, a man of rare abilities 
and great daring. He was a powerful speaker, fluent as a fountain, 
and extremely vigorous in his expressions : his imagery was original 
and beautiful, apposite and illustrative ; and his words and manner 
passionate to wildness. To all this he added the ferocity of his 
savage nature. 

Crowell was an especial friend of Governor Clarke, and was 
influenced by his party feelings of hatred to Troup — in his opposi- 
tion to a treaty, openly declaring that Georgia should never acquire 
the land while Troup was Governor. He was an unscrupulous man, 
of questionable morals, and vindictive as a snake. 

The persevering energy of Troup, however, prevailed. A treaty 
was negotiated, and signed by Crowell, as agent, and a number of the 
chiefs headed by Mcintosh. No sooner was this done, than Crowell, 
with a number of chiefs, hurried to Washington to protest against 
the ratification and execution of the treaty, charging the United 
States commissioners with fraud in the negotiation, under the 
influence of Troup, prompted by "VV. H. Crawford and friends. 
The fraud charged was in giving presents to the chiefs, and a 
couple of reservations of land to Mcintosh — one where he resided, 



FIFTY YEARS, I 33 

and the other around and including the famous Sulphur Spring, 
known as the Indian Spring, in Butts County. 

This habit of giving presents to the chiefs when negotiating treaties 
has always been the custom of the Government. They expect it ; it 
is a part of the consideration paid for the treaty of sale, for they are 
universally the vendors of territory and the negotiators of treaties 
for their tribes. This charge was simply a subterfuge, and one that 
was known would be influential with the mawkish philanthropists of 
the North, Mr. Adams, and the senators and representatives from New 
England. Upon the assumption of fraud, based upon these charges 
alone, the treaty was set aside by the action of the President and 
Cabinet alone; and by the same authority a new one made, with 
a change of boundary, involving a loss of a portion of territory 
belonging to Georgia under the stipulations of the contract between 
the State and United States. The previous or first treaty had been 
submitted to the United States Senate, and duly ratified, thereby 
becoming a law, under which Georgia claimed vested rights. 

It was under these trying circumstances that the stern and deter- 
mined character of Troup displayed itself. Holding firmly to the 
doctrine of State rights, he notified the President that he should dis- 
regard the latter treaty, and proceed to take possession of the terri- 
tory under the stipulations of the former one. Upon the receipt of 
this information. General Gaines was ordered to Georgia to take 
command of the troops stationed along the frontier of the State, and 
any additional troops which might be ordered to this point, with 
orders to protect the Indians, and prohibit taking possession of the 
territory, as contemplated by Governor Troup. A correspondence 
ensued between General Gaines and Governor Troup of a most angry 
character. It terminated with an order to General Gaines to forbear 
all further communication with the Government of Georgia. This 
was notified to the President, (if my memory is correct, for I write 
from memory,) in these terms: 

"John Quincy Adams, President of the United States: 

"Sir: I have ordered General Gaines to forbear all further com- 
munication with this Government. Should he presume to infringe 
this order, I will send your major-general by brevet home to you m 
irons. George M. Troup, Governor of Georgia." 

The surveyors previously appointed by the Legislature were 



134 THEMEMORIESOF 

directed to be on the ground, in defiance of United States authority, 
on the first day of September succeeding, and at sunrise to com- 
mence the work of surveying the lands. A collision was anticipated 
as certain between the troops of the United States and the autliorities 
of Georgia. But there was a difficulty in the way not previously con- 
templated. Colonels John S. Mcintosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, 
and Duncan Clinch, each commanded regiments in the South. 
Twiggs and Mcintosh were native Georgians. Clinch was a North 
Carolinian, but was a resident of Florida. Zachary Taylor was the 
lieutenant-colonel of Clinch's regiment. He was a Virginian by 
birth, but resided in Mississippi. All were Southern men in feeling, 
as well as by birth, and all Jeffersonian Republicans, politically. 
Mcintosh and Twiggf were fanatical in their devotion to the State of 
their birth. The ancestors of both were among the first settlers, and 
both were identified with her history. The three wrote a joint letter 
to the President, tendering their commissions, if ordered to take arms 
against Georgia. This letter was placed in the hands of one who 
was influential with Mr. Adams, to be delivered immediately after 
the order should be issued to General Gaines to prevent by force of 
arms the survey ordered by Governor Troup. Troup had classified 
the militia, and signified his intention to carry out, if necessary, the 
first-negotiated treaty, by force of arms, as the law of the land. 

It was, unquestionably, the prudence of this friend Avhich pre- 
vented a collision. He communicated with Mr. Adams confiden- 
tially, and implored him not to issue the order. He assured him 
that a collision was inevitable if he did, and caused him to pause 
and consult his advisers, who declared their conviction that the first 
treaty was the law of the land, and that Georgia held vested rights 
under it. In obedience to this advice, Mr. Adams made no further 
effort to prevent the action of Georgia, and the lands were surveyed 
and disposed of by the State, under and according to the terms of 
the first treaty, and she retains a large strip of territory that would 
have been lost to her under the last treaty. My information of these 
facts was derived from Twiggs, Clinch, and Henry Clay. Who 
the friend was to whom the letter was intrusted, I never knew. I 
mentioned to Mr. Clay the facts, and he stated that they were true, 
but no knowledge of them ever came to him until the expiration of 
Mr. Adams' Administration. General Taylor stated to me that long 
after these events had transpired, and after the resignation of Colonel 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 35 

Clinch, General Twiggs had made the communication to him. As 
nearly as I can remember, Twiggs made the statement to me in 
the language I have used here. On returning from the ratification 
meeting, at Canton, of the nomination of Mr. Clay for the Presi- 
dency, in 1844, before we reached Baltimore, I was in a carriage 
with General Clinch and Senator Barrow, of Louisiana, and stated 
these facts, and Clinch verified them. 

General Gaines was, of all men, the most unfit for a position like 
that in which he was placed. He was a good fighter, a chivalrous, 
brave man ; but he was weak and vain, and without tact or discre- 
tion. His intentions were, at all times, pure, but want of judgment 
frequently placed him in unpleasant positions. The condition of 
the minds of the people of Georgia, at this time, was such, that very 
little was necessary to excite them to acts of open strife, and had Mr. 
Adams been less considerate than he was, there is now no telling 
what would have been the consequence. He was extremely unpop- 
ular at the South, and this, added to the inflamed condition of public 
opinion there, would assuredly have brought on a colli.sion. Had it 
come, it might have resulted in a triumph of Southern principles, 
which, at a later day, and under less auspicious circumstances, strug- 
gled for existence, only to be crushed perhaps forever. 

It was universally the wish of the people of Georgia to have pos- 
session of the land properly belonging to her, and but for their fac- 
tious divisions, the hazards of a conflict between the troops of the 
United States and those of Georgia would have been more imminent. 
It was believed by both these factions, that whoever should, as Gov- 
ernor of the State, succeed in obtaining these lands, would thereby be 
rendered eminently popular, and secure to his faction the ascendency 
in the State for all time. The faction supporting Clarke believed 
he would certainly triumph in the coming contest before the people, 
and assumed to believe that then the matter of acquisition would be 
easy, as the Administration of Mr. Adams supposed that faction 
could, by that means, be brought into the support of the party now 
being formed about it. Clarke and many of his leading friends were 
coquetting with the Administration. He was — as was his brother- 
in-law, Duncan G. Campbell — a strong friend of Mr. Calhoun, who 
was then the Vice-President. National parties were inchoate, and 
many politicians were chary of choosing, and seemed to wait for the 
development of coming events, ere they gave shape and direction to 



136 THE MEMORIES OF 

their future courses. It was certain that Mr. Clay was identified with 
the American System, and that would, in a great degree, be the lead- 
ing policy of the Administration. Mr. Calhoun, when Secretary of 
War, under Mr. Monroe, had made a strong report in favor of 
internal improvements by the General Government, within the limits 
of the States, and, while a member of Congress, had made an equally 
strong one in favor of a national bank. These were two of the promi- 
nent features of the American system, and it was generally believed 
that this policy would be too popular to combat. It had originated 
during the Administration of Monroe, and if it had the opposition 
of any member of his Cabinet, it was unknown to the country. Mr. 
Crawford and Mr. Calhoun, as well as Mr. Adams, were members 
of that Cabinet, and were all, in some degree, committed to this 
policy; for Mr. Crawford, as a Senator from Georgia, during the 
Administration of Mr. Madison, had sustained the doctrine of the 
constitutionality and the policy of a national bank, in one of the very 
ablest speeches ever made upon the subject, saying everything which 
could or can be said in favor of such a government financial agent, 
and refuting every objection of its opponents. From this speech is 
derived every argument and every idea of both the reports of Cal- 
houn and McDuffie, which were heralded to the nation as greater 
even than that of Mr. Dallas, who, with Robert Morris, may be said 
to be the fathers of this institution. Mr. Clay had, in one of his 
ablest speeches, opposed the bank at a former time, and his change 
of opinion was now well known. 

It was very well understood that the coming men were Clay, Jack- 
son, and Calhoun. Clarke and his friends were ardent supporters 
of Calhoun, and it was thought they had won the favor of the Admin- 
istration. Mr. Clay was strongly opposed to the execution of the 
old treaty, and had, by this means, drawn upon himself the opposi- 
tion of the Crawford, or Troup party. These facts show the condi- 
tion of public opinion in the State, and conclusively establish the 
fact, that but for this division of the people, and the check held by 
this upon the action of the masses and their leaders, fearful conse- 
(juences would assuredly have ensued. 

The reasons influencing the joint action of Mr. Adams and Mr. 
Clay in opposition to the execution of the old treaty were very dif- 
ferent. Mr. Clay was honest and patriotic. He had no ulterior 
views to subserve. His policy was national. He desired the pros- 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 37 

perity and advancement of his country to greatness and power 
among the nations of the earth. His fame was that of the nation ; 
already it was identified with it. His ambition was a noble and a 
grand one. He wished his name identified with his acts, and these 
to constitute the fame and glory of the nation. He ever felt what 
subsequently he so nobly expressed, " That he would rather be right 
than be President." He had no petty selfishness — no pitiful revenges 
to exhaust with the hand of power — no contemptible motives for 
elevating or advancing the interests of one section of his country by 
oppressing another. "All his aims were his country's," and his 
whole country's. He desired that every act of that country should 
bear the broadest light, and challenge the closest and most search- 
ing scrutiny ; that each should be a new and brighter gem in the 
diadem of her glory, and that her magnanimity should be most con- 
spicuous in her transactions with the weakest. This he especially 
desired, and labored to effect, in all her transactions with the Indians. 
He viewed these as the primitive proprietors of the soil, and posses- 
sors of the entire country. He knew they were fading away before 
a civilization they were by nature incapacitated to emulate, and this, 
he felt, was in obedience to the inexorable laws of Divine Provi- 
dence ; and, in the wonderfully capacious compassion of his nature, 
he desired, in the accomplishment of this fate, that no act of national 
injustice to them should stain the nation's escutcheon, and determined 
to signalize this desire in every act of his when giving form and shape 
to national policy. He had generously lent a listening ear to the 
protests of the chiefs, seconded by that of their agent, and sincerely 
believed the treaty had been effected by fraud, and was wrong and 
oppressive, and, therefore, he opposed its execution, and was the 
main instrument in forming a new one. The draft of this was from 
his own pen, and he was solicitous that it should supersede the old 
one, as an expression of the Indians' desire. 

Mr. Adams was, equally with Mr. Clay, opposed to the treaty as 
ratified, though, as was his constitutional duty, he had sent the instru- 
ment for the action of the Senate. In heart he was opposed to any 
treaty which would remove the aborigines from ,this territory at this 
time, and, in consequence of the action of Georgia, it was antici- 
pated that, at no very distant day, the entire Indian population east 
of the Mississippi River, in the South, would be removed, unless 
some policy of the Government should be adopted which would pre- 

12* 



138 THE MEMORIES OF 

vent it; and those of the North, who felt desirous of crippling the 
territorial progress of the South, and, of consequence, her augmenta- 
tion of population, supposed the most effectual means of accomplish- 
ing this would be to educate and Christianize the Indian. To do 
this, they insisted he must remain upon the territory he now occu- 
pied. This would bring him into immediate contact with the 
civilized white, where he could be most readily approached by mis- 
sionaries and schoolmasters, and be instructed by the force of 
example. At the same time, he was to remain under the sole pro- 
tection of the United States Government, without any of the privi- 
leges of civil government to be exercised as a citizen of the United 
States or the State upon whose soil he was located. This was enno- 
bled as the sentiment of Christian benevolence, while its real inten- 
tion was to withhold the land from the occupancy of the people of 
Georgia, and in so much retard the groAvth and increase of the 
white population of the State. To carry out this scheme, missionary 
establishments sprang up among the Indians in every part of the 
South, but especially within the limits of the State of Georgia, filled 
with Northern fanatics, who employed themselves most actively in 
prejudicing the minds of the savages against the people who were 
their neighbors, and preparing them to refuse to treat for the sale of 
any of their territory. 

t has ever been the practice of the Puritan to propagate the vilest 
heresies, and for the vilest purposes, under the name of philanthropy 
and religion. It has burned its enemy at the stake, as, assembled 
around, they sang psalms, and sanctified the vilest cruelties with the 
name of God's vengeance. It was their great prototype. Cotton 
Mather, who blasphemously proclaimed, after the most inhuman 
massacre of several hundred Indians, that they, the Puritans of 
Massachusetts, " had sent, as a savory scent to the nostrils of God, 
two hundred or more of the reeking souls of the godless heathen." 
This, ostensibly, was deemed a pious act, and a discharge of a 
pious duty, when, in truth, the only motive was to take his home 
and country, and appropriate it to their own people. It seems 
almost impossible to the race to come squarely up to truth and 
honesty, in word or act, in any transaction, as a man or as a people. 
Sinister and subtle, expediency, and not principle, seems to be their 
niversal rule of action. Cold and passionless, incapable of gen- 
eVous emotions, he is necessarily vindictive and cruel. Patient and 



any 

/^' 

/ hen 
r and 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 39 

persevering, bigoted and selfish, eschewing as a crime an honorable 
resentment, he creeps to his ends like a serpent, with all bis cunning 
and all his venom. 

John Quincy Adams^ in his nature, was much more like his mother 
than his father. His features were those of his naother, and the cold, 
persevering hatred of his nature was hers. From his boyhood he 
was in the habit of recording, for future use, the most confidential 
conversations of his friends, as also all that incautiously fell from an 
occasional interview with those less intimate. Had this been done 
for future reference only to establish facts in his own mind, there 
could have been no objection to the act ; but this was not the motive. 
These memoranda were to rise up in vengeance when necessary to 
gratify his spleen or vengeance. He was naturally suspicious. He 
gave no man his coiiiidence, and won the friendship of no one. 
Malignant and unforgiving, he watched his opportunity, and never 
failed to gratify his revengeful nature, whenever his victim was in 
his power. The furt ive w ariness of hisj mall gray eye, his pinched 
nose, receding forehead, and thin, compressed lipsT^ndicated the 
malignant nature of his soul. Unfaithful to friends, and only con- 
stant in selfishness — unconscious of obligation, and ungrateful for 
favors — fanatical only in hatred — pretending to religious morality, 
yet pursuing unceasingly, with merciless revenge, those whom he 
supposed to be his enemies, he combined all the elements of Puritan 
bigotry and Puritan hate in devilish intensity. He deserted the 
Federal party in their greatest need, and meanly betrayed them to 
Mr. Jefferson, whom, from his boyhood, he had hated and reviled 
in doggerel rhymes and the bitterest prose his genius could suggest. 

The conduct of Mr. Adams, after he had been President, as the 
representative of Massachusetts in Congress, is the best evidence of 
the motives which influenced his conduct in the matter of these two 
treaties. He never lost an opportunity to assail the interests and 
the institutions of the South. He hated her, and to him, more than 
to any other, is due the conduct of the Northern people toward the 
South which precipitated the late war, and has destroyed the har- 
mony once existing between the people. 

His father had been repudiated by the South for a more trusted 
son of her own. This was a treasured hatred ; and when he shared 
his father's fate, this became the pervading essence of his nature. 

He returned to Congress, after his defeat for the Presidency, for 



140 THEMEMORIESOF 

no other purpose than to give shape and direction to a sentiment 
which he felt must ultimately result in her ruin, and to accomplish 
this he was more than willing to hazard that of the Government. 
He felt, should this follow, his own people would be in a condition 
to dictate and control a government of their own creation, and 
which should embody their peculiar views, rather than the pure and 
unselfish principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, 
and preserved in the Constitution of the United States. 

The sagacity of George M. Troup was the first to discover this in 
his conduct as President, and to sound the alarm as Governor of 
Georgia. He came directly in contact with him, and determined he 
should be defeated in one of his means for injury to the South. 
Troup knew and felt the right was with him, and maintained it with 
the honest boldness of a true man. He triumphed, and the doc- 
trine of State rights was rescued from a fatally aimed blow, and 
reaffirmed, gave renewed popularity and strength to its supporters. 
The election of General Jackson soon after followed, and, as the 
embodiment of the principle, rallied around him its supporters from 
every section. With these, and his immense popularity personally, he 
scotched, for a time, the Puritan snake ; but, true to its instincts, it 
struggled to bite, though its head was off. 

Mr. Adams saw in Troup a strong and uncompromising foe ; he 
knew, too, the right was with him, and that if pushed to extremities 
the result would be damaging to his fame, as having, in persevering 
for the wrong, destroyed the Government, and at a time, too, when 
every benefit from such destruction would inure to the South. 
Under the circumstances his course was taken : he dared not consult 
or trust Mr. Clay with the real motives which influenced him to yield, 
and made a virtue of patriotism and magnanimity which cloaked his 
pusillanimity, and shielded from public view his envenomed chagrin. 

It was doubtless this triumph which secured the second election 
of Troup. Personally he was unpopular with the masses. His 
rearing had been in polished society, and though he was in principle 
a democrat, in his feelings, bearing, and associations he was an aris- 
tocrat. He accorded equality to all under the law and in political 
privilege, but he chose to select his associates, and admitted none to 
the familiarity of intimacy but men of high breeding and unques- 
tioned honor. In many things he was peculiar and somewhat 
eccentric. In dress, especially so — often appearing in midwinter 



FIFTY YEARS. I4I 

in light, summer apparel; and again, in summer, with a winter 
cloak wrapped carefully about him. When he appeared first before 
the assembled Legislature, and many of the first citizens of the State, 
to take the oath of office, it was a raw, cold day in November : his 
dress was a round jacket of coarse cotton, black cassimere vest, 
yellow nankeen pantaloons, silk hose, and dancing-pumps, with a 
large-rimmed white hat, well worn. In his address, which was short 
and most beautiful, he made his hat conspicuous by holding it in 
his right hand, and waving it with every gesture. In person, he was 
below the middle size, slender, though finely formed; his hair was 
red, and his eyes intensely blue and deeply set beneath a heavy 
brow; his nose was prominent and aquiline; his mouth, the great 
feature of his face, was Grecian in mould, with flexible lips, which, 
while in repose, seemed to pout. His rabid opposition to those 
engaged in the Yazoo frauds, and his hatred for those who defended 
it, made him extremely obnoxious to them, and prompted Dooly to 
say: "Nature had formed his mouth expressly to say, 'Yazoo.'" 
Its play, when speaking, was tremulous, with a nervous twitching, 
which gave an agitated intonation to his words very effective. 

The form of his head, and especially his forehead, indicated an 
imaginative mind, while the lines of his face marked deep thought. 
He was strictly honest in everything; was opposed to anything which 
wore the appearance of courting public favor, or seemed like a desire 
for office. His private life was exemplary, kind, and indulgent to 
his children and servants, and full of charity; severe upon nothing 
but the assumptions of folly, and the wickedness of purpose in the 
dishonest heart. In every relation of life he discharged its duties 
conscientiously, and was the enemy only of the vicious and wicked. 
He continued to reside upon his plantation in Lawrence County with 
his slaves, carefully providing for their every want until his death. 
He had attained the patriarchal age of threescore years and ten, 
and sank to rest in the solitude of his forest-home, peacefully and 
piously, leaving no enemies, and all the people of his State to mourn 
him. 



142 THEMEMORIESOF 



CHAPTER XI. 

POLITICAL CHANGES. 

Aspirants for Congress — A New Organization — Two Parties — A 
Protective Tariff— United States Bank — The American System — 
Internal Improvements — A Galaxy of Stars — A Spartan Mother's 
Advice — Negro-Dealer — Quarter Races — Cock-Pitting — M ilitary 
Blunders on both Sides — Abner Green's Daughter — Andrew Jack- 
son — Gwinn — Poindexter — Ad Interim — Generals as Civil Rulers. 

THE remarkable excitement of the political contest between 
Troup and Clarke had the effect of stimulating the ambition of 
the young men of education throughout the State for political dis- 
tinction. For some time anterior to this period, all seemed content to 
permit those who had been the active politicians in the Republican 
struggle with the Federal party to fill all the offices of distinction in 
the State without opposition. It would have been considered pre- 
sumptuous in the extreme for any young man, whatever his abilities, 
to have offered himself as a candidate for Congress in opposition to 
Mr. Forsyth, R. H. Wild. Thomas W. Cobb, Edward F. Tatnal, 
and men of like age'and political faith. The members of Congress 
were elected by general ticket ; and the selection of candidates was 
not by a convention of the people or party. The names of candi- 
dates were generally recommended by influential parties, and their 
consent to become candidates obtained through solicitations ad- 
dressed to them, and then published to the people. The State was 
so unanimous in political sentiment, that for many years no opposi- 
tion to the Republican party was thought of 

But now parties were organizing upon principles, or rather policies, 
entirely new; there was a fusion of the old elements of party, and 
Federalists and Republicans were side by side in this new organiza- 
tion. Men who had been under the ban, for opinion's sake, were 
coming into public view and public favor, and disclosing great abili- 
ties. At the head of these was John McPherson Berrien, who, to 
the end of his life, was so distinguished in the councils of the nation. 
At the same time, in every part of the State, young men were rising 
up as men of promise for talent and usefulness. These men arrayed 
themselves with either of the two parties, as inclination or interest 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 1 43 

prompted. Active and assiduous, they were soon prominent before 
the people, and a new era was commencing. With the election of 
John Quincy Adams, the State was in a blaze and politics a furor. 
Opposition immediately commenced to the leading measures of the 
Administration, and the Legislature of 1825 was filled with young 
men of talent, who were enthusiastic and fierce in their sentiments 
and feelings. They had been divided as partisans of Troup and 
Clarke, and met as antagonists in the Legislaiire ; but really without 
any defined policy in opposition to that of the administration of the 
General Government of the nation. A suspicion filled every one 
that this policy was disastrous to Southern interests, and sectional in 
its character, although designated as national. 

Few men of the South had given much attention to the effect a 
tariff for revenue had upon the commercial and manufacturing 
interests of the North. The war with England had created a debt, 
and this tariff had been imposed solely for the purpose of securing, 
not only a sufficient revenue for the current necessities of the Gov- 
ernment, but a surplus, which should in a short time liquidate the 
public debt. It was sufficient to afford protection to the manufac- 
turing interests of the North, to increase this into a formidable 
revenue, and to enlist a national party in its support. It was now, when 
the public debt was liquidated, that another reason was necessary for 
continuing a policy which had grown up from the necessities of the 
nation — consequently it was assumed to be a national policy to pro- 
mote national independence, and protection was claimed for national 
industry against European competition. This policy in the Govern- 
ment would encourage extravagance, waste, and corruption — such 
a bane to republics — because it would create an immense surplus in 
the national treasury, unless some scheme for its expenditure could 
be devised which should seem to promote the national interest. To 
this end, the party of the Administration claimed a constitutional 
power in Congress to carry on a system of internal improvements ; 
and heavy appropriations were made for this purpose, not only 
absorbing the surplus revenue, but creating a necessity for more — 
and this necessity was an excuse for increasing the tariff. 

The Bank of the United States was the depository of the moneys 
of the nation and her disbursing agent. The constitutionality of this 
institution had been a mooted question from the day it was first pro- 
posed by Robert Morris. Mr. Madison, who was a Republican, had 



144 THE MEMORIES OF 

at one time vetoed it; at another, approved it. Mr. Crawford, a most 
inveterate States-rights man and strict constructionist of the Constitu- 
tion, had uniformly supported it. Mr. Clay had both supported and 
opposed it. The question 'was finally adjudicated by the Supreme 
Court, and, so far as that decision could make it, was decided to be 
constitutional. This, however, did not satisfy the Republican or 
States-rights party ; a large majority of whom always insisted upon 
its unconstitutionality. At the time of its creation, a necessity existed 
for some such institution, to aid the Government in its financial opera- 
tions, and at the time of the renewal of its charter the Government had 
just emerged from a war ; every State was creating banks, and the 
country was flooded with an irredeemable and worthless currency, 
disturbing commerce, unsettling values, and embarrassing the Govern- 
ment. A power was wa"nted somewhere to control these State banks, 
and to give a redeemable and uniform currency to the country. 

The State banks had proved destructive to the public interest ; 
with no power to restrain their issues except that imposed by their 
charters and the honesty of their officers — a frail security for the 
public, as experience had attested. The example of Washington 
was pleaded by the advocates of the bank. At the very outset it had 
been opposed for want of constitutionality. Washington had doubted 
it, and submitted the question to two of his Cabinet — Mr. Jefferson 
and Mr. Hamilton. They were divided in opinion — Mr. Jefferson 
opposing, and Mr. Hamilton sustaining the constitutionality of the 
measure. The opinion and argument of Hamilton prevailed, and 
the act creating a bank received the Executive approval. 

It answered admirably the object of its creation, and the Repub- 
lican party (then in embryo) acquiesced. Indeed, at this time, there 
could scarcely be said to be a party separate from the Government. 
Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Jefl"erson were the leaders of the parties 
which divided the people upon the adoption of the Constitution, and 
these parties, though at this time inchoate, were concreting about 
these two wonderful men. Upon the renewal of the charter of 
the United States Bank, during the Administration of Mr. Madi- 
son, the Republican party again mooted its constitutionality; but 
its undisputed usefulness had won for it immense popularity, and 
there were many who, though acting with the Republicans, were 
willing (as Washington had approved it, and the Supreme Court had 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 45 

pronounced it constitutional) to view the question as settled, and 
vote to renew the charter. 

It was subsequent to the veto of Mr. Madison (when he had recon- 
sidered his action, and recommended the re-chartering of the bank,) 
that debates ensued, in which the question was exhausted. In these 
debates, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Clay, Felix Grundy, William B. Giles, 
and Mr. Calhoun led. They were continued through several ses- 
sions, up to 1816, when they ultimated in the chartering of the 
last bank of the United States. This charter expired during the 
Administration of General Jackson, and by him the bank was finally 
crushed. 

Three great measures constituted what was then termed the Ameri- 
can System — the United States Bank, a protective tariff, and internal 
improvements within the States by the General Government. An 
opposition to this party was formed at the very outset of the Adams 
Administration. This opposition denied the constitutional power of 
Congress to create or sustain either. 

The South, at the commencement of this opposition, was almost 
alone. The North was a unit in its support of the Administration, 
because its policy was vital to her interests. The West, influenced 
by Mr. Clay, was greatly in the majority in its support. The South- 
ern opposition seemed almost hopeless ; and to this cause may, in 
a great degree, be ascribed the bringing forth to public view the 
transcendent abilities of the young men aspiring for fame in Georgia, 
and in the South generally. McDuffie, Hamilton, Holmes, and 
Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina ; Colquett, Cobb, Toombs, 
Stephens, Johnson, Nesbit, and John P. King,' of Georgia; Wise, 
Bocock, Hunter, Summers, Rives, and others of Virginia ; Man- 
gum, Badger, and Graham, of North Carolina; Bell, Foster, Pey- 
ton, Nicholson, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee; King and Lewis, 
of Alabama ; Porter, Johnston, White, and Barrow, of Louisiana ; 
Ashley, Johnson, and Sevier, of Arkansas ; Chase, Pugh, Pendle- ^ 
ton, and Lyt*i>, of Ohio ; and Douglas, Trumbull, and Lincoln, of ^^ 
Illinois, were all men of sterling talent, and were about equally 
divided in political sentiment. Kentucky had Tom and Humphrey 
Marshall, Crittenden, Menife^, Letcher, Breckinridge, and Preston. Q^ 

General Jackson was now the avowed candidate of the States- 
rights party, which soon after assumed the name of Democratic, and 
his political principles and great personal popularity were not only 
13 K 



1 46 ' THE MEMORIES OF 

dividing the West, but the Middle States, and even those of New- 
England. 

During the entire administration of Adams, there was a majority 
in Congress supporting his policy. It was then and there that the 
great battle for supremacy was fought. Berrien and Forsyth, from 
Georgia, in the Senate; McDufifie and Preston, from South Carolina; 
Cass, from Michigan, and Van Buren and Silas Wright, from New 
York — all giants in intellect. But there were Webster and John 
Davis, from Massachusetts, George Evans, from Maine, and others 
of minor powers, but yet great men. Between these great minds the 
conflict was ^stupendous. Every means were put into requisition to 
sustain the Administration and its policy, but all were unavailing — 
General Jackson was elected by an overwhelming majority. Mr. 
Clay was immediately returned by Kentucky to the Senate, and 
organized an opposition upon the policy of the late Administration, 
led on by himself and Webster. The memory of those days, and 
the men who made them memorable, flits vividly before me; but I 
am not writing a history, and can attempt no order, but shall write 
on as these memories of men and events shall seem to me most 
interesting in their character to the general reader. 

General Jackson was one of those rare creations of nature which 
appear at long intervals, to astonish and delight mankind. It seems 
to be settled in the public mind that he was born in South Carolina; 
but there is no certainty of the fact. His early life was very ob- 
scure, and he himself was uncertain of his birth-place, though he 
believed it was South Carolina. He remembered the removal of his 
family from South Carolina, and many of the incidents of the war 
of the Revolution transpiring there ; but more especially those 
occurring in North Carolina, to which the family removed. Judge 
Alexander Porter, of Louisiana, was an Irishman, and from the 
neighborhood where were born and reared the parents of Jackson. 
His own father was brutally executed at Vinegar Hill, by sentence of 
a drum-head court martial, in 1798, and his family proscribed by the 
British Government. With his uncle, the Rowans, the Jacksons, and 
some others, he emigrated to America, and settled at Nashville, 
Tennessee. The Jacksons were of the same family, and distantly 
connected with General Jackson. Great intimacy existed between 
this family and General Jackson for many years. 

Judge Porter,- of whom I shall hereafter have something to say, 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 47 

visited Europe a short time before his death, and made diligent 
search into the history of the Jackson family, without ascertaining 
anything positively : he learned enough to satisfy his own mind that 
Andrew Jackson was born in Ireland, and brought to the United 
States by his parents when only two years old. This was also the 
opinion of Thomas Crutcher, who came with General Jackson to 
Nashville, and it was also the opinion of Dr. Boyd McNary and his 
elder brother, Judge McNary, who believed he was four years older 
than he supposed himself to be. 

The McNarys came with him from North Carolina. On the trip 
a difficulty occurred between Boyd McNary and Jackson, which 
never was reconciled — both dying in extreme old age. Boyd 
McNary stopped at Lexington and read medicine, forming there 
the acquaintance of Mr. Clay and Felix Grundy. The intimacy 
which sprang up between Clay and McNary was as ardent and 
imperishable as the hatred between himself and Jackson, enduring 
until death. Jackson was enterprising and eminently self-reliant ; in 
all matters pertaining to himself, he was his own counsellor ; he 
advised with no man ; cool and quick in thought, he seemed to leap 
to conclusions, and never went back from them. An anecdote rela- 
tive to his parting from his mother in his outset in life, illustrates this 
as prominent in the attributes of his nature at that time. The writer 
heard him narrate this after his return from Washington, when his 
last term in the Presidential office had expired. 

When about to emigrate to Tennessee, the family were residing in 
the neighborhood of Greensboro', North Carolina. 

"I had," said he, "contemplated this step for some months, and 
had made my arrangements to do so, and at length had obtained my 
mother's consent to it. All my worldly goods were a few dollars in 
my purse, some clothes in my saddle-bags, a pretty good horse, 
saddle, and bridle. The country to which I was going was com- 
paratively a wilderness, and the trip a long one, beset by many 
difficulties, especially from the Indians. I felt, and so did my 
mother, that we were parting forever. I knew she would not 
recall her promise ; there was too much spunk in her for that, 
and this caused me to linger a day or two longer than I had 
intended. 

"But the time came for the painful parting. My mother was a 
little, dumpy, red-headed Irish woman. ' Well, mother, I am ready 



1 48 THEMEMORIESOF 

to leave, and I must say farewell.' She took my hand, and pressing 
it, said, * Farewell,' and her emotion choked her. 

" Kissing at meetings and partings in that day was not so common 
as now. I turned from her and walked rapidly to my horse. 

"As I was mounting him, she came out of the cabin wiping her 
eyes with her apron, and came to the getting-over place at the fence. 
'Andy,' said she, (she always called me Andy,) ' you are going to 
a new country, and among a rough people ; you will have to 
depend on yourself and cut your own way through the world. I 
have nothing to give you but a mother's advice. Never tell a lie, 
nor take what is not your own, nor sue anybody for slander or 
assault and battery. Always settle them cases yourself !' I promised, 
and I have tried to keep that promise. I rode off some two hundred 
yards, to a turn in the path, and looked back — she was still standing 
at the fence and wiping her eyes. I never saw her after that." 
Those who knew him best will testify to his fidelity to this last 
promise made his mother. 

The strong common sense and unbending will of Jackson soon 
made him conspicuous in his new home, and very soon he was in 
active practice as a lawyer. His prominence was such, that during 
the last year of the last term of General Washington's Administration, 
a vacancy occurring in the United States Senate from Tennessee, 
General Jackson was appointed to fill it. He was occupying this 
seat when General Washington retired from the Presidency, and, 
with William B. Giles, of Virginia, voted against a resolution of 
thanks tendered by Congress to Washington, for his services to the 
country. For this vote he gave no reason at the time; and if he 
ever did, it has escaped my knowledge. 

The career of General Jackson, as a public man, is so well known, 
that it is not my purpose to review it in this place ; but many inci- 
dents of his private history have come to my knowledge from an 
association with those who were intimate with him, from his first 
arrival in Tennessee. These, or so many of them as I deem of 
interest enough to the public, I propose to relate. 

Jackson was a restless and enterprising man, embarking in many 
schemes for the accumulation of fortune, not usually resorted to by 
professional men, or men engaged in public matters. In business 
he was cautious. He was a remarkable judge of human character, 
and rarely gave his confidence to untried men. Notwithstanding 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. I 49 

the impetuosity of his nature, upon occasion he could be as cool and 
as calculating as a Yankee. The result was, that though he had 
many partners in the various pursuits he at different times resorted 
to, he rarely had any pecuniary difficulty with any of them. He 
was in the habit of trading with the low country, that is, with the 
inhabitants of Mississippi and Louisiana. 

Many will remember the charge brought against him pending his 
candidacy for the Presidency, of having been, in early life, a negro- 
trader, or dealer in slaves. This charge was strictly true, though 
abundantly disproved by the oaths of some, and even by the certifi- 
cate of his principal partner. Jackson had a small store, or trading 
establishment, at Bruinsburgh, near the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, 
in Claiborne County, Mississippi. It was at this point he received 
the negroes, purchased by his partner at Nashville,^ and sold them to 
the planters of the neighborhood. Sometimes, when the price was 
better, or the sales were quicker, he carried them to Louisiana. 
This, however, he soon declined ; because, under the laws of Louisi- 
ana, he was obliged to guarantee the health and character of the 
slave he sold. 

On one occasion he sold an unsound negro to a planter in the 
parish of West Feliciana, and, upon his guarantee, was sued and 
held to bail to answer. In this case he was compelled to refund the 
purchase-money, with damages. He went back upon his partner, 
and compelled him to share the loss. This caused a breach between 
them, which was never healed. This is the only instance which 
ever came to my knowledge of strife with a partner. He was close 
to his interest, and spared no means to protect it. 

It was during the period of his commercial enterprise in Missis- 
sippi that he formed the acquaintance of the Green family. This 
family was among the very first Americans who settled in the State. 
Thomas M. Green and Abner Green were young men at the time, 
though both were men of family. To both of them Jackson, at dif- 
ferent times, sold negroes, and the writer now has bills of sale for 
negroes sold to Abner Green, in the handwriting of Jackson, bearing 
his signature, written, as it always was, in large and bold characters, 
extending quite half across the sheet. At this store, which stood 
immediately upon the bank of the Mississippi, there was a race-track, 
for quarter-races, (a sport Jackson was then then very fond of,) and 
many an anecdote was rife, forty years ago, in the neighborhood, 
13* 



150 THE MEMORIES OF 

of the skill of the old hero in pitting a cock or turning a quarter- 
horse. 

This spot has become classic ground. It was here Aaron Burr 
was first arrested by Cowles Mead, then acting as Governor of the 
Territory of Mississippi, and from whom he made his escape, and it 
was at this point that Grant crossed his army when advancing against 
Vicksburg. It is a beautiful plateau of land, of some two thousand 
acres, immediately below the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, and bor- 
dered by very high and abrupt cliffs, which belong to the same 
range of hills that approach the river's margin at Vicksburg, Grand 
Gulf, Rodney, Natchez, and Bayou Sara. At this point they attain 
the height of three hundred feet, and are almost perpendicular. 
The summit is attained by a circuitous road cut through the cliffs, 
and this is the summit level of the surrounding country. 

This plateau of land, where once stood the little village of Bruins- 
burgh, has long been a cotton plantation, and a most valuable one it 
was before the late war. A deep, and, to an army, impassable 
swamp borders it below, and the same is the case above the Bayou 
Pierre. To land an army at such a place, when its only means of 
marching upon the country was through this narrow cut, of about 
one hundred feet in width, with high, precipitous sides, forming a 
complete defile for half a mile, and where five thousand men could 
have made its defence good against fifty thousand, is certainly as little 
evidence of military genius as was the permission of them to pass 
through it without an eff"ort to prevent it. 

To a military eye, the blunders of Grant and Pemberton are 
apparent in their every movement — and the history of the siege and 
capture of Vicksburg, if ever correctly written, will demonstrate to 
the world that folly opposed to folly marked its inception, progress, 
and finality. 

The friends formed in this section of country by Jackson were 
devoted to him through life, and when in after life he sent (for it is 
not true that he brought) his future wife to Mississippi, it was to the 
house of Thomas M. Green, then residing near the mouth of Cowles 
Creek, and only a few miles from Bruinsburgh. 

Whatever the circumstances of the separation, or the cause for it, 
between Mrs. Jackson and her first husband, I am ignorant ; I know 
that Jackson was much censured in the neighborhood of his home. 
At the time of her coming to Green's, the civil authority was a dis- 



I 



FIFTYYEARS. x, 

puted one ; most of the people acknowledging the Spanish. A suit 
was instituted for a divorce, and awarded by a Spanish tribunal. 
There was probably little ceremony or strictness of legal proceeding 
in the matter, as all government and law was equivocal, and of but 
little force just at that time in the country. It was after this that 
Jackson came and married her, in the house of Thomas M. Green. 

That there was anything disreputable attached to the lady's name 
is very improbable ; for she was more than fifteen months in the 
house of Green, who was a man of wealth, and remarkable for his 
pride and fastidiousness in selecting his friends or acquaintances. 
He was the first Territorial representative of Mississippi in Congress 
— was at the head of society socially, and certainly would never have 
permitted a lady of equivocal character to the privileges of a guest 
in his house, or to the association of his daughters, then young. 
During the time she was awaiting this divorce, she was at times an 
inmate of the family of Abner Green, of Second Creek, where she 
was always gladly received, and he and his family were even more 
particular as to the character and position of those they admitted to 
their intimacy, if possible, than Thomas B. Green. This intimacy 
was increased by the marriage of two of the Green brothers to nieces 
of Mrs. Jackson. 

In 1835, when Jackson was President, the writer, passing from 
Louisiana to New York with his family, spent some days at Wash- 
ington. His lady was the youngest daughter of Abner Green ; he 
was in company with a daughter of Henry Green and her husband ; 
her mother was niece to Mrs. Jackson. We called to see the Presi- 
dent, and when my lady was introduced to the General, he was 
informed she was the daughter of his old friend, Abner Green, of 
Second Creek. He did not speak, but held her hand for some 
moments, gazing intently into her face. His feelings overcame him, 
and clasping her to his bosom, he said, "I must kiss you, my child, 
for your sainted mother's sake;" then holding her from him, he 
looked again, " Oh ! how like your mother you are — she was the 
friend of my poor Rachel, when she so much needed a friend — I 
loved her, and I love her memory; " and then, as if*ashamed of 
his emotion, he continued : " You see, my child, though I am Presi- 
dent through the kindness or folly of the people, I am but a weak, 
silly old man." 

We spent the evening with him, and when in his private sitting- 



jr^ THE MEMORIES OF 

room his pipe was lighted and brought to him, he said : "Now, my 
child, let us talk about Mississippi and the old people." I have 
never in all my life seen more tenderness of manner, or more deep 
emotion shown, than this stern old man continually evinced when 
speaking of his wife and her friends. 

The character of General Jackson is yet greatly misunderstood. 
This has been caused by the fact that his words and actions, when 
in command, or when enraged, as a man, have been the main data 
upon which the estimate of his bearing and character has been pre- 
dicated. He was irascible and quick in his temper, and when 
angered was violent in words and manner. It was at such moments 
that the stern inflexibility of his will was manifest ; and his passion 
towered in proportion to provocation. But in private life and social 
intercourse he was bland, gentle, and conciliating. His manner 
was most polished and lofty in society, and in a lady's parlor, in 
urbanity and polish of manners, he never had a superior. This high 
polish was nature's spontaneous gift. He had never been taught it in 
courts, or from association with those who had. It was the emana- 
tion of his great soul, which stole out through his every word and 
movement in the presence of ladies, and which erupted as a volcano 
at insult or indignity from man. 

That evening at the White House is marked in my memory with 
a white stone. The playful simplicity of his conversation and man- 
ner, and the particularity of his inquiries about matters and things so 
insignificant, but which were links in the chain of his memories, I 
well remember. 

"Is old papa Jack and Bellile living?" he asked, after a pause, 
of my wife, accompanied with a look of eager anxiety. 

These were two old Africans, faithful servants of her father ; and 
then there was an anecdote of each of them — their remarks or their 
conduct upon some hunting or fishing excursion, in which he had 
participated forty years before. 

I was an interested spectator in the presence of one of nature's 
wonderful creations — one who had made, and who was making, his- 
tory for his country, and whose name was to descend to future times 
as one of her noblest sons and greatest historical characters. I 
watched every motion of his lips, every expression of his features, 
and every gleam of his great gray eyes, and I could but wonder at 
the child-like naturalness of everything about him. Is not this an 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 53 

attribute of greatness — to be natural? Yes; to be natural in all 
things belongs to truth, and a truthful exhibition of nature, without 
assumption or deceit, is greatness. Here was one who could, with 
natural simplicity, amuse a child ; and the same one could command 
and successfully wield a great army, and, with equal success, direct 
the destinies of a great nation ; whose genius was tempered with 
simplicity and tenderness, and when towering most in its grandeur, 
was most truthful to nature. 

General Jackson's early opportunities were extremely limited. 
His education was so very defective, that his orthography was almost 
ludicrous, and his general reading amounted to almost nothing. At 
no time was he a respectable county-court lawyer, so far as legal 
learning was concerned, and it is wonderful how the natural vigor 
of his mind supplied this defect. On the bench, his greatest aim 
was to get at the facts in every case, and to decide all points upon 
the broad principles of equity ; and in all his charges to the jury, 
his principal aim was to direct their attention to the simple justice of 
the case, and a favorite phrase of his in these charges was: "Do 
right between the parties, and you will serve the objects of the law." 

He was an enemy to all unnecessary forms in all matters. His 
manner was to go directly to the kernel, and he was very indifferent 
as to how the shell was cracked, or the husk removed. He never 
seemed to reason. Upon the presentation of any subject to his mind, 
it seemed, with electrical velocity, to cut through to a conclusion as 
if by intuition. He was correct in his conclusions more frequently 
than any man of his age. His knowledge of human nature was more 
consummate than that of any of his compeers who were remarkable 
for greatness of mind. In this, as in all other matters, his opinion 
was formed with the first glance. His intimacy with every sort of 
character, in his extended intercourse with the world, seemed so 
to have educated his faculties and whetted his perception, that he 
only wanted to look at a man for five minutes to know his inmost 
nature. Yet he was sometimes deceived, and, ascertaining this, 
nothing enraged him more. 

In his friendships he was almost fanatical. The humblest indi- 
vidual, who was his friend, and who had proven it, could command 
him in any manner, and to the full extent of his capacity to serve 
him. 

A remarkable instance of this trait was manifested in his conduct 



154 THE MEMORIES OF 

as President, toward a young friend, Mr. Gwinn, who was reared 
in the neighborhood of the Hermitage, and whose father had long 
been a trusted friend of Jackson. In 1832, when the lands obtained 
from the Choctaws in Mississippi were being brought into market, 
the office of register in the land-office in that State was an important 
one. It was given to Gwinn by Jackson, who was then President. 

When the nomination was sent to the Senate, opposition was made 
to its confirmation by George Poindexter, a senator from Mississippi. 
It had always been the practice of all preceding Presidents, when 
suitable persons could be had, to nominate them from the State in 
which the United States office to be filled was located. Poindexter 
insisted that this custom, from long usage, had become law ; and 
to send a citizen from one State* into another, there to fill a 
national office, was an indignity to her citizens, and a manifestation, 
to say the least of it, of distrust and suspicion as to the capacity or 
honesty of the people of the State. This opposition was successful, 
and Gwinn was rejected. The nomination was renewed, and again 
rejected. Jackson wrote to Gwinn, who was already by executive 
appointment discharging the duties of the office, to continue to do 
so. I was present when the letter was received, and permitted to 
read it. " Poindexter has deserted me," he said, "and his opposi- 
tion to your nomination is to render, as far as he can, my Adminis- 
tration unpopular with the people of Mississippi ; and a majority of 
the Senate are more than willing to aid him in this. They are only 
destroying themselves, not me, and some of them will soon find this 
out. Do you hold on to the office ; I will make no more nomina- 
tions ; but commission you ad interim as soon as Congress adjourns, 
which will be in a few weeks at farthest. Very soon my friends will 
be in a majority in the Senate — until then, I will keep you in the 
office, for I am determined you shall have it, spite of Poindexter." 
The result was as he had promised. 

This is but one of a thousand instances which might be enu- 
merated to attest the same fact. Such traits are always appreciated 
as they deserve to be; they address themselves to the commonest 
understanding, and are esteemed by all mankind. It is a mistake 
the world makes, that Jackson's popularity was exclusively military. 
Those great qualities of mind and soul which constituted him a great 
general, were not only displayed in his military career, but in all his 
life ; and to them he was indebted for the friends of his whole life ; 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 55 

they made him a man of mark before he was twenty-five years of 
age. His courage, intrepidity, frankness, honor, truth, and sincerity 
were all pre-eminent in his conduct, and carried captive the admira- 
tion of all men. His devotion to his wife, to his friends, to his duty, 
was always conspicuous ; and these are admired and honored, even 
by him who never had in his heart a feeling in common with one of 
these. All these traits were so striking in Jackson's character as to 
make them conspicuous. They were more marked in his than in 
that of any other man of his day, because the impulses of his tem- 
perament were more prompt and potent. They were natural to him, 
and always naturally displayed. There was neither assumption of 
feeling nor deceit in its manifestation ; all he evinced, bubbled up 
from his heart, naturally and purely as spring -water, and went 
directly to the heart. These great and ennobling traits were not 
unfrequently marred by passion, and acts which threw a cloud over 
their brilliancy ; but this, too, was natural : the same soul which was 
parent to this violence and extravagance of passion, was, too, the 
source of all his virtues, and all were equally in excess. The con- 
sequence of this violence were sometimes terrible. They were 
evanescent, and, like a thunder-storm, seemed only to clear the 
atmosphere for the display of beautiful weather. 

The triumphs of mind, unaided by education, sometimes are aston- 
ishing, — in the case of General Jackson, perhaps, not more so than 
in many others. The great Warwick of England, the putter-up and 
the puller-down of kings, did not know his letters ; Marshal Soult, 
the greatest of Napoleon's marshals, could not write a correct sen- 
tence in French ; and Stevenson, the greatest engineer the world 
ever saw — the inventor of the locomotive engine — did not know his 
letters at twenty-one years of age, and was always illiterate. It is a 
question whether such minds would have been greatly aided by edu- 
cation, or whether they might not have been greatly injured by it — 
nature seeming to have formed all minds with particular proclivities. 
These are more marked in the stronger intellects. They direct to 
the pursuit in life for which nature has designed the individual : 
should this idiosyncrasy receive the proper education from infancy, 
doubtless it would be aided to the more rapid and more certain 
accomplishment of the designs of nature. To discover this in the 
child, requires that it should be strongly developed, and a close and 
intelligent observation on the part of the parent or guardian who 



156 THE MEMORIES OF 

may have the direction of the child's education. But this, in the 
system of education almost universally pursued, is never thought of; 
and the avocation of the future man is chosen for him, without any 
regard to his aptitudes for it, and often in disregard of those mani- 
fested for another. Consequently, nature is thwarted by ignorance, 
and the individual drags on unsuccessfully in a hated pursuit through 
life. Left alone, these proclivities become a passion, and where 
strongly marked, and aided by strength of will, they work out in 
wonderful perfection the designs of nature. Julius Caesar, Hannibal, 
Attila, Yengis Khan, Prince Eugene, Marlborough, Napoleon, and 
Wellington were all generals by nature — and so were Andrew Jack- 
son and "Stonewall" Jackson. The peculiarities of talent which 
make a great general make a great statesman ; and all of those who, 
after distinguishing themselves as great generals, were called to the 
administration of the civil affairs of their respective Governments, 
have equally distinguished themselves as civilians. 

The proposing of General Jackson as a candidate for the Presi- 
dency was received, by most of those who were deemed statesmen, 
as a burlesque ; and many of those most active in his support only 
desired his election to further their own views, and not for the 
country's benefit. It was supposed he was so entirely unacquainted 
with state-craft, that he would be a pliant tool ^ an automaton, to 
dance*to their wire-pulling. How little they understood him, and 
how well he understood them ! At once he let them know he 
was President, and was determined to take the responsibility of 
administering the Government in the true spirit of its institutions. 
The alarm, which pervaded all political circles so soon as this was 
understood, is remembered well. It was a bomb exploded under 
the mess-table, scattering the mess and breaking to fragments all 
their cunningly devised machinations for rule and preferment — an 
open declaration of war against all cliques and all dictation. His 
inaugural was startling, and his first message explicit. His policy 
was avowed, and though it gathered about him a storm, he nobly 
breasted it, and rode it out triumphantly. His administration closed 
in a blaze of glory. He retired the most popular and most powerful 
man the nation had ever seen. 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 57 

CHAPTER XII. 

GOSSIP. 

Unrequited Love — Popping the Question — Practical Joking — Satan 
Let Loose — Rhea, but not Rhea — Teachings of Nature — H. S. Smith. 

THIS must be a gossiping chapter, of many persons and many 
things, running through many years. 

I love to dwell upon the years of youth. They are the sweetest 
in life ; and these memories constitute most of the happiness of 
declining life. Incidents in our pilgrimage awaken the almost for- 
gotten, and then how many, many memories flit through the mind, 
and what a melancholy pleasure fills the soul I We think, and think 
on, calling this and that memory up from the grave of forgetfulness, 
until all the past seems present, and we live over the bliss of boyhood, 
with a mimic ecstasy of young life and its gladdening joys. 

Like every young man, I suppose, I loved a fair girl with beauti- 
ful blue eyes, and lips so pouting and plump, so ruddy and liquid, 
that the words seemed sweetened as they melted away from them ; 
but my love was unpropitious, and another was preferred to me. I 
have ever been curious to know why. Vanity always in my own 
soul made me greatly the superior of the favored one, in all particu- 
lars. But she did not think so, and chose as she liked. I saw her 
but once a bride. I went away, and found, as others do, another 
and dearer love. Sitting on my horse by her side, as she held in 
her beautiful palfrey, upon the summit of a cliff, which rises grandly 
above, and brows the drab waters of the great Mississippi, she 
pointed to the river, which resembled a great, white serpent, wind- 
ing among green fields and noble forests, for twenty miles below. 
Her eyes were gray, and large, and lovely ; her form was towering, 
and her mien commanding. She grew with the scene. She was 
born only a mile away, in the midst of a wild forest of walnut 
and magnolia, amid towering hills, and cherished them and this 
mighty river in childhood, until she partook of their grandeur and 
greatness. I thought she was like the love of my youth, and I loved 
her, and told her of it. The sun was waning — going down to rest, 
'4 



158 THE MEMORIES OF 

and, like a mighty monarch, was folding himself away to sleep in gor- 
geous robes of crimson and gold. In his shaded light, outstretching 
for fifty miles beyond the river, lay, in sombre silence, the mighty 
swamp, with its wonderful trees of cypress, clothed in moss of gray, 
long, and festooning from their summits to the earth below, and 
waving, like banners, in the passing wind. The towering magnolia, 
in all the pride of foliage and flower, shaded us. The river, in 
silent and dignified majesty, moved onward far below, and evening 
breezes bathed, with their delicious touch, our glowing cheeks. 
The scene was grand, and my feelings were intense. In the midst of 
all this beauty and grandeur, she was the cynosure of eye and heart. 
I loved her ; and yet, my conscience rebuked me for forgetting my 
first love, and I asked myself if, in all this wild delirium of soul, 
there was not some little ingredient of revenge. No, it was for her- 
self — all for herself; and, chokingly, I told her of it, when she 
drooped her head, and, in silence, gave me her hand. We went 
away in silence. There was too much of feeling to admit of speech. 
Delicious memory ! Of all our ten children, four only remain. 
The willow's tears bedew her grave, and her sons fill the soldier's 
grave, and, wrapped in the gray, sleep well. 

Yesterday I met her who first kindled in my bosom affection for 
woman — a widowed woman, withered and old. She smiled: the 
lingering trace of what it was, was all that was left. The little, 
plump hand was lean and bony, and wrinkles usurped the ala- 
baster brow. Fifty years had made its mark. But memory was, by 
time, untouched. We parted. I closed my eyes, and there she was, 
in her girlhood's robes and her girlhood's beauty. The lip, the 
cheek, the glorious eye, were all in memory garnered still ; and I 
loved that memory, but not the woman now. Another was in the 
niche she first cut in my heart, whose cheek and eye and pouting 
lip were young and lovely. Still these memories awoke out of this 
meeting, and, for hours, I forgot that I was wrinkled, old, and gray. 

I wonder how many's history I am writing now? The history of 
the heart, at last, is all the endearing history of waning life. Recur 
as we may to every success, to every sorrow, and they whisper a 
chapter of the heart. We struggle to make happy those we love. 
The gratifications of wealth, ambition, and feeling, all refer to the 
heart. There could be no pleasure from these memories if those we 
loved had not participated in them. We build a home for her we 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 59 

love, and those who sprout around us. We win wealth and a name 
for these, and but for them, all that is innate would be only alloy. 
They must reflect the bliss it brings, or it has no sweetness. Can 
there be a soul so sordid as to riot in pleasure and triumphs all alone 
— to shun companionship, and hate participation in the joys that 
come of successful life ? 

I am in the midst of the scenes of my childhood, with here and 
there one friend left, who shared with me the school-hours, Satur- 
day rambles, and sports of early boyhood. With these the memo- 
ries come fresh and vigorous of the then occurring incidents — the 
fishings, the Saturday-night raccoon hunts, the forays upon orchards 
and melon-patches, and the rides to and from the old, country 
church on the Sabbath ; the practical jokes of which I was so fond, 
and from which even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, 
indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. 
There are a few who will remember it ; for they have laughed at it 
for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one 
occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly 
nature will, at least, allow it to be a white one. 

I am near the old mill my father built, and, if I remember all 
connected with my boyhood there, I trust there will be few or none 
to sneer or blame. The flouring-mill, or mill for grinding grain, 
and the saw-mill were united under the same roof; and it was the 
business of father to give his attention, as overseer, not only to the 
mills, but to his planting interest. He employed a North Carolina 
Scotchman — that is, a man descended of Scotch parents, but born 
in North Carolina — to superintend his saw-mill, who had all the 
industry, saving propensities, and superstitions of his ancestry. He 
was a firm believer in spells, second-sights, and ghosts. Taking 
advantage of these superstitions, my brother and myself made him 
the sufferer in many a practical joke. Upon one occasion, we put 
into circulation, in the neighborhood, a story full of wonder. A 
remarkable spectre had been seen near the mill on dark nights, and 
especially on those misty nights of murky gloom, common in early 
spring to this latitude. Its form was unique and exaggerated, with 
flaming eyes, and mouth of huge proportions, with long, pointed 
teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this gorgon of my imagination 
constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip. Several negroes had 
seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely escaping its voracious 



l60 THE MEMORIES OF 

mouth and attenuated claws, through the fleetness of fear. The old 
hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage, had proclaimed him 
from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing his thousand 
years of wandering up and down the earth. 

I had procured from a vine in the plum-orchard a gourd of huge 
dimensions, such as in that day were used by frugal housewives 
for the keeping of lard for family use. It would hold in its capa- 
cious cavity at least half a bushel. This was cut one-third of its cir- 
cumference for a mouth, and this was ga/nished with teeth from 
the quills of a venerable gander, an especial pet of my mother. 
The eyes were in proportion, and were covered with patches of red 
flannel, purloined from my mother's scrap-basket. A circle, an 
inch in diameter, made of charcoal, formed an iris to a pupil, cut 
round and large, through the flannel. A candle was lighted, and 
introduced through a hole at the bottom of the gourd, and all 
mounted upon a pole some ten feet long. In the dark it was hideous, 
and, on one or two occasions, had served secretly to frighten some 
negroes, to give it reputation. It was designed for Rhea, the Caro- 
linian. On Saturday night it was his uniform practice to come up to 
the house, cleanly clad, to spend the evening. There was a canal 
which conveyed the water from the head above to the mill. This 
ran parallel with the stream, and was crossed, on the public road, by 
a bridge, one portion of which was shaded by a large crab-apple 
bush. Though fifty years ago, it still remains to mark the spot. 
Beyond the creek (which was bridged, for foot-passengers, with the 
trunk of a large tree,) was a newly cleared field, in which the negroes 
were employed burning brush on the Saturday night chosen for 
ray sport. Here, under this crab-tree, I awaited the coming of 
Rhea. It was misty, and densely dark. Presently the footsteps of 
my victim were heard approaching ; he was on the bridge. He 
came on ca^itiously, to be secure of a safe footing in the dark. Sud- 
denly I turned the grinning monster full in his face. A scream and 
a leap followed. Down the muddy creek-bank rushed my victim, 
pUmged through the tumbling waters waist-deep, and, as soon as the 
opposite shore was reached, a vociferous call was made for Tom, the 
negro foreman. Horror of horrors ! it was my father's voice. In 
an instant my candle was out, and I was running. 

I passed unconcernedly through the house and took a seat in the 
back passage, and awaited events. It was not long before the sloppy 



FIFTY YEARS. lOl 

noise of shoes full of water, heard m walking, came through the 
yard, and into the house. It was my dear old frightened father, all 
reeking from his plunge into the creek. "Why, husband," asked 
mother, " how did you get so wet ? " He slung the damp from his 
hat as he cleared his throat, and said: "I slipped off that cursed 
log, in crossing the creek." Reflection had told him he had been 
foolishly frightened, and he was ashamed to acknowledge it. My 
conscience smote me, but I laughed, and trembled — for had he 
made discovery of the trick, it would have been my time to suffer. 

Memory brings back the features, the kind and gentle look of that 
dear and indulgent parent, and the unbidden tear comes. The 
last time I ever saw him was at the terminus of the railroad, on 
the banks of Lake Pontchartrain ; he placed his aged arms about my 
shoulders, and, pressing me to his bosom, bid me "Farewell," as, 
trembling with emotion, he continued : "we are parting forever, my 
child." He had met misfortunes in his latter days, and was poor, 
but I had filled his purse with the means which smoothed his way the 
remnant of his life. The prediction was but too true ; in less than 
one year after that parting, he slept in death. 

And now, when war and death have swept from me children, for- 
tune, all, and I am old and needy, it is a consolation known only to 
my own bosom that I plucked the thorn from my parent's path. 

These are childish memories, and may be too puerile for record ; 
but I am sure most of my readers will find in them something of their 
own childhood's memories. It is my memories of men and things, 
I am writing, and I would be faithful to them. 

Boyhood's memories crowd the after-life with half the joys its 
destiny demands ; associations which revive them come as pleasant 
showers to the parched herbage when autumn's sun withers its flush, 
and yellows the green of spring-time.. Oh ! the zest of early sports — 
of boyhood's mischief; so free from selfishness, so untouched with 
meanness, so full of joyous excitement, so loved for itself. Every 
man has been a boy; every woman has been a girl ; and all alike have 
felt and enjoyed the sweets of young life ; and when years and cares 
and tears have stolen away the green from the soul, and the blos- 
soms of the grave whiten about the brow, and the unbidden sigh 
breaks away from the grief of the heart, and memory startles with 
what was when we were young, the contrast would be full of misery 
14* L 



1 62 THE MEMORIES OF 

did not a lingering of the joys which filled our frolics and our follies 
come to dull the edge of sorrow. 

When the cravings of the mind, taught by time to be unrealizable, 
are driven from hope ; when the purity of youthful feelings are soiled 
by contact with the world's baseness ; when the world's passing 
interests harden the serisibilities, and we have almost forgotten that 
we were ever young, or had a youthful joy, some little story, some little 
incident will startle the memory, and touch and tone the heart to the 
music of its spring, and the desert waste which time has made green 
again with memories which grew from bliss budding in our youth ; 
and, though they never come to fruitage, are cherished with a joy. 

Oh ! the heart, the heart — what are all its joys of youth, and all its 
griefs of age ? Is it that youth has no apprehensions, and we enjoy 
its anticipations and its present without alloy ? or does its all belong 
to love and joy when life and the world is new? Are these too 
bright, too pure for time ? and the griefs of later life the Dead Sea 
apples which grow from them. And is it so with all? Is there one, 
whose years have brought increase of happiness, and who has lived 
on without a sorrow ? 

In God's economy must all experience misery,to dull the love of 
life, and kindle hope for a blissful future, to steal from the heart its 
cherished here, to yield it all in its hereafter. Ah ! we know what a 
world this is, but what a world is to come we know not. Is it not 
as reasonable to believe we lived before our birth into this, as to hope 
we shall live after death in another world ? Is this hope the instinct 
of the coming, or does it grow from the baser instinct of love for 
the miserable life we have? It is easy to ask, but who shall answer? 
Is it the mind which remembers, and is the mind the soul ? or is the 
soul independent of the mind, surviving the mind's extinction? and 
do the memories of time die with time ? or. 

Do these pursue beyond the grave? 
Must the surviving spirit have 
Its memories of time and grief? 
Then, surely, death is poor relief. 
Shall it forget the all of time, 
When time 's with all her uses gone, 
And be a babe in that new clime? 
Then death is but oblivion. 

Youth's happiness is half of hope; all that of age is memory — 



FIFTYYEARS. 1 63 

and yet these memories more frequently sadden than gladden the 
heart. Then what is life to age? Garrulity, and to be in the way. 
Our household gods grow weary of our worship, and the empty stool 
we have filled in gray and trembling age in the temple we have built, 
when we are gone is kicked away, and we are forgotten ; our very 
children regret (though they sometimes assume a painful apprehen- 
sion) we do not make haste to die — if we have that they crave, and 
inherit when we shall have passed to eternity. But if the gift of 
raiment and food is imposed by poverty on those who gave them 
birth, they complain, and not unfrequently turn from their door the 
aged, palsied parent, to die, or live on strangers' charity. Sad pic- 
ture, but very true, very true ; poor human nature ! And man, 
so capable in his nature of this ungodliness, boasts himself made 
after God's own image. Vanity of vanities ! 

Nature's harmony, nature's loveliness, nature's expansive great- 
ness and grandeur teaches of God, and godliness. The inanimate 
and unthinking are consiste^jtly harmonious and beautiful ; man only 
mars the harmony, and makes a hell for man in time. Then, is time 
his all? or, shall this accursed rabidness be purged away with death, 
and he become a tone in accord with inanimate things? or, shall 
this but purify as fire the yielding metal, the inner man, which hope 
or instinct whispers lives, and animates its tenement of time, to 
view, to know, and to enjoy creation through eternity ? Wild 
thoughts are kindling in my brain, wild feelings stir my heart. 

This is a beautiful Sabbath morning, the blazing sun wades through 
the blue ether, and space seems redolent of purity and beauty. The 
breeze is as bland as the breath of a babe, coming through my case- 
ment with the light, and bathing my parched cheek ; and the sere 
summer is warming away the gentle, genial spring. This is her last 
day ; and to how many countless thousands is it the last day of life? 
Oh ! could I die as gently, as beautifully as dies this budding season 
of the year, and could I know my budding hopes, like these buds of 
spring, would, in their summer, grow to fruit as these are growing, 
how welcome eternity ! But I, as well, have my law, and must wait 
its fulfilment. It is the Sabbath wisely ordained to rest, and in its 
quiet and beauty obliviating care and sorrow. Would it were to the 
restless mind as to the weary limbs, and as to these, to this give ease 
and repose ! 

I have been dreaming, and my boyhood days revive with busy 



r 04 THE MEMORIES OF 

memories. My gentle mother, ever tender and kind, seems busy 
before me ; the old home, the old servants, as they were ; the old 
school-house in the woods by the branch, and many a merry face 
laughing and beaming around ; and my own old classmate, my sol- 
itary classmate, so loved, ah ! so loved even unto this day. It was 
only yesterday I saw him, old and care-worn, yet in all the nobility 
of his soul, bearing with stern philosophy the miseries of misfortune 
inflicted by the red hand of merciless war, yielding with dignity and 
graceful resignation to the necessities imposed by unscrupulous power, 
conscious of no wrong, and sustained by that self-respect the result 
of constant and undeviating rectitude which has marked his long 
life. From childhood our hearts have been intertwined, and death 
only has the power to tear them apart. We sat together long hours, 
and talked of the past — alternately, as their memories floated up, 
asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?" and to each 
inquiry the sad monosyllable, ''Dead ! " was the reply, of all who 
were with us at school when we were boys. . We alone are left ! 

In my strife with the world, I can never forget 
The scenes of my childhood, and those who were there 
When I was a child. I remember them yet ; 
Their features, their persons, to memory so dear, 
Are present forever, and cling round my heart — 
On the plains of the West, in the forest's deep wild, 
On the blue, briny sea, in commerce's mart, 
'Mid the throngs of gay cities with palaces piled. 

The bottle of milk, and the basket of food. 

Prepared by my mother, at dawning of day. 

For my dinner at school ; and path through the wood : 

How well I remember that wood and that way, 

The brook which ran through it, the bridge o'er the brook. 

The dewberry-briers which grew by its side. 

My slate, and my satchel, and blue spelling-book, 

And little white pony father gave me to ride! 

The spring by the hill, where our bottles were placed 

To bathe in its waters, so clear and so cool, 

Till dinner-time came ! Oh ! then how we raced 

To get them, and dine in the shade by the pool ! 

The spring, and the pool, and the shade are still there. 

But the dear old school-house has rotted and gone, 

And all who were happy about it are — where ? 

Go — go to the church-yard, and ask the grave-stone! 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 1 65 

A few there are left, old, tottering, and gray, 
Apart and forgotten, as those who are dead; 
Yet sometimes they meet on life's thorny way, 
And talk, and live over the days that have fled. 
Oh ! how I remember those faces so bright. 
Which beamed in their boyhood with honesty's ray ! 
And oft, when alone, in the stillness of night, 
We're all at the school-house again, and at play! 

Of all those who were there with me, the best loved was H. S. 
Smith, now of Mobile; and he, with perhaps one or two more, are 
all that are now living. Our ages are the same, within a week or 
two, I am sure ; and we are of the same height and same weight ; and 
our attachment was mutual : it has never been marred through three- 
score years and ten, and to-day we are, as brothers should be, with- 
out a secret hidden in the heart, the one from the other. As a 
friend, as a husband, as a father, as a man, I know none to rival 
H. S. Smith. He never aspired to political distinction : content to 
pursue, through life, the honorable and responsible business of a 
merchant, he has distinguished himself for energy, capacity, prob- 
ity, and success ; and in his advanced years enjoys the confidence 
and esteem of all honest men. Our years have been, since 1826, 
spent apart — communication, however, has never ceased between 
us, and the early friendship, so remarked by all who knew us, con- 
tinues, and will until one is alone in life. 

I know this narrative will not be interesting to those unacquainted 
with Smith and myself. To such I say, close the book, nor read 
on, but turn to that which may interest more, because more known. 
I could not pen the memories of fifty years, and forbear those the 
sweetest now, because their fruit to me has ever been the sweetest ; 
and the noble virtues of the private gentleman cannot be the less 
appreciated because they have only adorned a circle where they 
shone in common with those around him. These are the men who 
preserve the public morals, and purify the atmosphere polluted by 
the corruptions of men prominent before the world for distinguished 
abilities, and equally distinguished immoralities. From these radiate 
that open-hearted honesty which permeates society, and teaches by 
example, and which so often rebukes the laxity of those who, from 
position, should be an example and an ornament. The purling 
stream murmuring its lowly song beneath the shading forest and 



1 66 THE MEMORIES OF 

modest shrubs may attract less attention than the turbid, roaring 
river, but is always purer, sweeter, more health-giving and lovely. 

The romance of youth is the sugar of life, and its sweets to mem- 
ory, as life recedes, augment as " distance lends enchantment to the 
view." We make no account of the evanescent troubles which 
come to us then but for a moment, and are immediately chased 
away with the thickening delights that gild young life and embalm 
it for the memories of age. The gravity of years delights to recount 
these ; and few are indisposed to listen, for it is a sort of heart-his- 
tory of every one, and in hearing or reading, memory awakes, and 
youth and its joys are back again, even to tottering, palsied age. 
Then, gentle reader, do not sneer at me : these are all I have left ; 
my household gods are torn away, my boys sleep in bloody graves, 
my home is desolate, I am alone, with only one to comfort me — 
she who shares the smiles and tears which lighten and soothe the 
weary days of ebbing life. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

INFLUENCE OF CHILDHOOD. 

First Impressions — Fortune — Mirabeau B. Lamar— Dr. Alonzo Church 
— Julius C/esar — L. Q. C. Lamar — Texan Independence — Colquitt — 
Lumpkin — What a Great Man Can Do in One Day — Charles J. 

Jenkins. 

THE memories of childhood cling, perhaps, more tenaciously 
than those of any after period of life. The attachments and 
antipathies then formed are more enduring. Our school-companions 
at our first school — the children of our immediate neighborhood, 
who first rolled with us upon the grass, and dabbled with us in the 
branch — we never forget. Time, absence, protracted separation, 
all fail to obliterate the features, the dispositions, or anything about 
them, which so unconsciously fastens upon the mind, and grows into 
the tender soul of childhood. These memories retain and bring 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 6/ 

back with them the feelings, the likes and dislikes, which grew with 
them. These feelings are the basis of lifetime loves, and eternal 
antipathies. 

The boy is father to the man, as the girl is mother to the 
woman. Who that has lived seventy years will not attest this from 
his own life's experience? The generous, truthful boy will be 
the noble, honorable man ; the modest, timid, truthful girl will be 
the gentle, kind, and upright woman. Nature plants the germ, and 
education but cultivates the tree. It never changes the fruit. The 
boy who, when dinner-time comes, happens to have a pie, when 
his fellows have none, and will open his basket before his com- 
panions, and divide with them, will carry the same trait to the grave. 
His hand will open to assist the needy, and he will seek no reward 
beyond the consciousness of having done right. And he who, with 
the same school-boy's treasure, will steal away, and devour it behind 
the school-house, and alone, will, through life, be equally mean in 
all his transactions. From motives of interest, he may assume a 
generosity of conduct, but the innate selfishness of his heart will, in 
the manner of his dispensing favors, betray itself. Education, and 
the influences of polished society, may refine the manners, but they 
never soften the heart to generous emotions, where nature has refused 
to sow its seed. But where her hand has been liberal in this divine 
dispensation, no misfortune, no want of education or association, will 
prevent their germination and fructification. Such hearts divide 
their joys and their sorrows, with the fortunate and afflicted, with 
the same emotional sincerity with which they lift their prayers to 
Heaven. 

The school-room is an epitome of the world. There the same 
passions influence the conduct of the child, which will prompt it in 
riper years, and the natural buddings of the heart spring forth, and 
grow on to maturity with the mind and the person. College life is but 
another phase of this great truth, when these natural proclivities are 
more manifest, because more matured. It is not the greatest mind 
which marks the greatest soul, and it is not the most successful who 
are the noblest and best. The shrewd, the mean, and the selfish 
grow rich, and are prosperous, and are courted and preferred, 
because there are more who are mean and venal in the world than 
there are who are generous and good. But it is the generous and 
good who are the great benefactors of mankind ; and yet, if there 



1 68 T H E iM E M O R I E S O F 

was no selfishness in human nature, there would be no means of 
doing good. Wealth is the result of labor and economy. These 
are not incompatible with generosity and ennobling manliness. 
The proper discrimination in the application of duties and donations 
toward the promotion of useful institutions, and the same discrimina- 
tion in the dispensation of private charities, characterize the wise and 
good of the world. These attributes of mind and heart are apparent 
in the child ; and in every heart, whatever its character, there is a 
natural respect and love for these, and all who possess them. Such 
grow with their growth in the world's estimation, and are prominent, 
however secluded in their way of life, or unpretending in their con- 
duct, with all who know them, or with whom, in the march of life, 
they come in contact. 

It is to but few that fortune throws her gifts, and these are 
rarely the most deserving, or the goddess had not been represented 
with a bandage over her eyes. She is blind, and though her wor- 
shippers are many, she kisses but few, and cannot see if they be fair 
and beautiful or crooked and ugly. Hence most of those who 
receive her favors conceal them in selfishness, and hoard them to be 
despised ; while hundreds, slighted of her gifts, cultivate the virtues 
which adorn and ennoble, and are useful and beloved. 

Will you, who yet live, and were children when I was a child, 
turn back with me in memory to those days, and to those who were 
your school-fellows and playmates then ? Do you remember who 
were the brave and generous, kind and truthful among them ? and 
do you recall their after lives ? Answer me ; were not these the true 
men in that day ? Do you remember William C. Dawson, Joseph 
H. Lumpkin, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, and his brother Mirabeau B. 
Lamar, Eugenius Nesbit, Walter T. Colquitt, and Eli S. Shorter? 
How varied in temperament, in character, in talent; and yet how like 
in the great leading features of the soul ! Love for their country, 
love for their kind, love for the good was common to them all ; 
unselfish beyond what was necessary to the wants of their families, 
generous in the outpourings of the soul, philanthropic, and full of 
charity. They hoarded no wealth, nor sought it as a means of 
power or promotion. Intent upon the general good, and content 
with an approving conscience and the general approbation, their 
lives were correct, and their services useful; and they live in the 
memory of a grateful people as public benefactors. 



I 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. I 69 

There are others who rise to memory, who were at school with these, 
who were men with these, but they shall be nameless, who struggled, 
and successfully, to fill their coffers to repletion, and for nothing 
else; who have been courted by the mercenary, and flattered by the 
fawning sycophant; who, with their hoardings, have passed away, and 
no grateful memory remains of their lives ; their hoards are dissi- 
pated, and they are only remembered to be despised. And yet 
others, who swam in the creek and sported on the play-ground with 
all of these, whose vicious propensities were apparent then — whose 
after lives were as their boyhood promised, a curse to society in evil 
deeds and evil example — have gone, too, unwept, unhonored, and 
luckily unhung. 

Mirabeau B. Lamar was the son of John Lamar, of Putnam 
County, Georgia, and received his education principally at Milledge- 
ville and at Putnam. From his earliest boyhood, he was remarka- 
ble for his genius and great moral purity. His ardent, poetical 
temperament was accompanied with exquisite modesty, and a gentle 
playfulness of disposition ; with an open, unaffected kindness of 
heart, which as a boy rendered him popular with his fellows at 
school, and beloved by his teachers. There was in him a natural 
chivalry of character, which characterized him above all of his early 
compeers, and made him a model in conduct. Truthful and manly, 
retiring and diffident, until occasion called out the latent spirit of his 
nature ; then the true greatness of his soul would burst forth in an 
impetuous eloquence, startlingly fierce and overwhelming. Nor was 
this excitement always wasted in words — not a few, when yet a boy, 
have regretted the awakening of his wrath. It was upon occasions like 
this, that his eye assumed an expression which I have never seen in 
the eye of any other human being. His eyes were beautifully blue, 
large, and round, and were always changing and varying in their 
expression, as the mind would suggest thought after thought; and so 
remarkable were these variations, that, watching him in repose, one 
who knew him well could almost read the ideas gathering and 
passing through his mind. There was a pleasant vein of satire in 
his nature, sometimes expressed, but always in words and in a man- 
ner which plucked away its sting : 



An abstract wit of gentle flow, 

Which wounds no friend, and hurts no foe. 



170 THE MEMORIES OF 

He was my school-fellow and companion in childhood, my friend 
and associate in early manhood ; our intimacy was close and cordial, 
and in after life this friendship became intense — and I knew him 
perhaps better than any man ever knew him. 

All the peculiarities of the boy remained with the man, distin- 
guishing him in all his associations. The refined purity of his nature 
made him naturally to despise and scorn all meanness and vice, and 
so intensely as to render an association with any man distinguished 
by these, however exalted his intellect, or extensive his attainments, 
impossible. Falsehood, or the slightest dishonorable conduct in any 
man, put him at once beyond the pale of his favor or respect. In all my 
association with him, I never saw an indelicate act in his conduct, or 
heard an obscene word in his conversation. In youth, he was fond 
of the society of ladies — fond of this society not for a pastime, but 
because of his high appreciation of the virtues of those he selected 
for society. In his verse, "Memoriam," he has embalmed the 
memory of those of our early female friends he most esteemed. He 
rather courted this association in the individual than in the collective 
assembly -r- for he was not fond of crowds, either in society, or the 
ordinary assemblages of men and women. 

The love of fame, more than any other passion, fired his ambition; 
but it was not the love of notoriety — the fame he courted was not 
that which should only render his name conspicuous among men, that 
he might receive the incense of hypocritical flattery, or be pointed at 
by the fickle multitude — for such, his contempt was supreme ; but 
it was the desire of his heart, and the struggle of his life, to be em- 
balmed in men's memories as the benefactor of his race, to be remem- 
bered for his deeds as the great and the good. This was the spon- 
taneous prompting of his heart, and for this he labored with the zeal 
of a martyr. 

Much of his early life was devoted exclusively to literature. His 
reading, though without order, was select and extensive. He was 
well versed in ancient history. The heroic characters of Greece and 
Rome were his especial admiration, and that of Brutus above all 
others. Of the nations of modern Europe, and their history, he 
knew everything history could teach. His imagination was fired 
with the heroic in the character of those of modern times, as well as 
those of antiquity, and seemed the model from which was formed 
his own. The inflexible integrity, the devoted patriotism, the 



FIFTYYEARS. I7I 

unselfish heroism of these were constantly his theme when a school- 
boy, and the example for his imitation in manhood. 

When a school-boy, and at a public examination and exhibition, 
(then common at the academies throughout the State,) our teacher, 
that paragon of good men. Dr. Alonzo Church, selected the tragedy 
of Julius Cffisar for representation by the larger boys, and, by com- 
mon consent, the character of Brutus was assigned to Lamar. Every 
one felt that the lofty patriotism and heroic virtues of the old Roman 
would find a fit representative in Lamar. I remember, in our 
rehearsals, how completely his identity would be lost in that of 
Brutus. He seemed to enter into all the feelings and the motives 
which prompted the great soul of the Roman to slay his friend for 
his country's good. Time has left but one or two who participated 
in the play. The grave has closed over Lamar, as over the others. 
Those who remain will remember the bearing of their companion, 
on that occasion, as extraordinary — the struggle between inclina- 
tion and duty — the pathos with wl^ch he delivered his speech to the 
people after the assassination, but especially his bearing and manner 
in the reply to Cassius' proposition to swear the conspirators — the 
expansion of his person to all its proportions, as if his soul was about 
to burst from his body, as he uttered : 

" No, not an oath." 

And again, when the burning indignation burst from him at the 
supposition of the necessity of an oath to bind honorable men : 

" Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, 
Old, feeble, carious, and such suffering souls 
That welcome wrongs, unto bad causes. Swear 
Such creatures as men doubt, but do not stain 
The even virtue of our enterprise. 
Nor the unsuppressive mettle of our spirits, 
To think that our cause, or our performance, 
Did need an oath ; when every drop of blood 
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, 
Is guilty of a several bastardy 
If he do break the smallest particle 
Of any promise that hath passed from him." 

Though a boy, the effect upon the audience was electrical. The 
nature of his boy representative was the same as that which animated 



172 THE MEMORIES OF 

Rome's noblest son. From his soul he felt every word, and they 
burned from his lips, with a truth to his soul and sentiments, that 
went home to every heart in that assembly of plain farmers, and 
their wives and daughters. There were not ten, perhaps, who had 
ever witnessed a theatrical entertainment, but their hearts were 
mortal and honest, and they saw in the mimic youth the impersona- 
tion of the nobility of soul, and mighty truth, and the spontaneous 
burst of applause was but the sincerity of truth. The exclamation 
of one I shall never forget: "He is cut out for a great man." 
There was no stage-trick ; he had never seen a theatre. There was 
no assumption of fictitious feeling ; but nature bubbled up in his 
heart, and the words of Shakspeare, put into the mouth of Brutus, 
were but the echo of the deep, true feelings of his soul. Through 
all his life this great nature adorned his conversation, and exemplified 
his conduct. 

The soul of Brutus was born in Lamar. All the truth and chivalry 
illustrative of the conduct of the one, was palpable in the other. Let 
those who saw him, at San Jacinto, at the head of his sixty horsemen, 
ride upon the ranks of Santa Anna's hosts, tell of his bearing in that 
memorable charge, when he rose in his stirrups, and, waving his sword 
over his head, exclaimed : "Remember, men, the Alamo ! Remem- 
ber Goliad, Fannin, Bowie, and Travis ! Charge ! and strike in ven- 
geance for the murdered of our companions." Resistless as the 
tempest, they followed his lead, and swept down upon the foe, 
charging through, and disordering their ranks, and, following in 
their flight for miles, made many a Mexican bite the dust, or yield 
himself a prisoner to their intrepidity. To this charge was solely 
attributable the capture of Santa Anna, Almonte, and the principal 
portion of the Mexican army, and the establishment of Texan inde- 
pendence. 

As a poet, he was above mediocrity, and his "Sully Riley," and 
many of his fugitive pieces, will long survive, to perpetuate the 
refined delicacy of his nature, when, perhaps, his deeds as a soldier 
and as President of Texas shall have passed away. In stature he 
was below the medium height, but was stout and muscular. His 
face was oval, and his eyes blue, and exceedingly soft and tender 
in their expression, save when aroused by excitement, when they 
were blazing and luminous with the fire of his soul, which enkindled 
them. He was free from every vice, temperate in living, and 



FIFTY YEARS. 173 

remarkable for his indiiTerence to money — with a lofty contempt 
for the friends and respectability which it alone conferred. If there 
ever lived four men insensible to fear, or superior to corruption, 
they were the four brothers Lamar. They are all in eternity, and 
their descendants are few, but they wear unstained the mantle of 
their ancestry. 

L. Q. C. Lamar, the elder brother of the four, was educated at 
Franklin College, and studied law in Milledgeville. Very soon after, 
he was admitted to the Bar. He became distinguished for attention 
to business, and for talent, as well as legal attainments. Like his 
brother, M. B. Lamar, he was remarkable for his acute sense of 
honor and open frankness, a peerless independence, and warm and 
noble sympathies. He married, while young, the daughter of D. 
Bird. The mother of his lady was one of the Williamson sisters, so 
remarkable for their superiority, intellectually, and whose descend- 
ants have been, and are, so distinguished for talent. 

The character of L. Q. C. Lamar as a man, and as a lawyer, 
prompted the Legislature of the State to elevate him to the Bench 
of the Superior Court when very young ; and at thirty-two years of 
age, he was known throughout the State as the great Judge Lamar. 
This family had contributed perhaps a greater number of men of 
distinguished character than any other family of the State. Zachariah 
Lamar, the uncle of Judge Lamar, was a man of high order of mind, 
distinguished for his love of truth, stern honesty, and great energy. 
He was the father of Colonel John B. Lamar, who fell in the service 
of the South, in the recent conflict. He was one of Georgia's 
noblest sons, and his memory is cherished by all who knew him. 
Henry G. Lamar, a former member of Congress, and Judge of the 
Superior Court of the State, was a cousin of both John B. and M. B. 
Lamar; and the eminent and eloquent Lucius Lamar, of Mississippi, 
who was considered, when young, the best orator of the House of 
Representatives of the United States Congress, is the son of Judge 
L. Q. C. Lamar. 

The name of Lamar has long been a synonym for talent and 
chivalrous honor in Georgia. They have been distinguished in 
every pursuit, and no stain has ever rested upon the name — in 
whatever avocation employed, conspicuous for capacity, honesty, 
and energy. They are of French extraction, and to their latest 
posterity they continue to exhibit those traits peculiar to the French 
15* 



1 74 THEMEMORIESOF 

— chivalry, intense sensibility, love of truth, refinement of manner, 
lofty bearing, and a devotion to honor which courts death rather 
than dishonor. 

The name of M. B. Lamar is identified with the history of Texas, 
as a leader among that band of remarkable men who achieved her 
independence of Mexican rule — Houston, Sidney Johnson, Bowie, 
Travis, Crockett, and Fannin. He was twice married ; his first wife, 
Miss Jordan, died young, leaving him a daughter. This was a bitter 
blow, and it was long ere he recovered it. His second wife was the 
daughter of the distinguished Methodist preacher John Newland 
^ M^ffitt, and sister of Captain Mfcffitt, late of the service of the Con- 
federacy. He died at Richmond, Fort Bend County, Texas, beloved 
and regretted as few have been. 

Perhaps among the most remarkable men of the State, contempo- 
raneous with the Lamars, was Walter T. Colquitt, Joseph H. 
Lumpkin, Charles J. Jenkins, William C. Dawson, and Charles J. 
McDonald : all of these were natives of the State — Colquitt, Eugenius 
A. Nesbit, and McDonald, of Hancock County ; Lumpkins, Ogle- 
thorpe, Dawson, Green, and Jenkins, of Richmond; Nesbit, of 
Greene. At the period of time when these men were young, educa- 
tion was deemed essential, at least to professional men. They all 
enjoyed the benefits of a classical education. Lumpkin and Colquitt 
received theirs at Princeton, New Jersey, and I believe were class- 
mates, at least they were college-mates. Colquitt returned homd 
before graduating ; Lumpkin received the second honor in his class. 
Returning to Georgia, Lumpkin read law in the town of Lexington, 
the court-house town of his native county; and commenced, as soon 
as admitted, its practice in the northern circuit of the State. At the 
time he came to the Bar, it was ornamented with such men as 
Thomas W. Cobb, Stephen Upson, George R. Gilmer, John A. 
Herd, and Duncan G. Campbell. He rose rapidly to eminence in 
the midst of this galaxy of talent and learning. The great John M. 
Dooly was upon the bench of this circuit, and was the intimate 
friend of Wilson Lumpkin, an elder brother of Joseph H. Lumpkin. 
Wilson Lumpkin and Joseph H. Lumpkin were politically opposed. 
The former was an especial friend of Dooly ; the latter, of William 
H. Crawford. Mr. Crawford, soon after Lumpkin's admission to 
the Bar, returned to his home, near Lexington, and gave his counte- 
nance and support to him, and at the same time his bitterest oppo- 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 75 

sition to the political aspirations of his brother. The forensic 
abilities of young Lumpkin were winning for him in the State a proud 
eminence. His exalted moral character, studious habits, and devo- 
tion to business attracted universal observation and general com- 
ment. He had been from his birth the favorite of all his 
acquaintances, for the high qualities of his head and heart — the 
model held up by mothers for the example of their sons. Scarcely 
any boy in the county was ever reprimanded for a wild frolic or piece 
of amusing mischief, who was not asked, "Why can't you be like 
Joe Lumpkin? " 

All this favoritism, however flattering, did not spoil him, as is too 
frequently the case with precocious youth. His ambition had fixed a 
lofty mark, and he availed himself of this universal popularity to 
reach it ; at the same time, he left no effort neglected to deserve it, 
and maintain it, once acquired. 

The State was teeming with young men of talent, scarcely a county 
without at least one of great promise. Lumpkin saw and knew the 
rivalry would be fierce, and success only to be obtained by superior 
abilities and eminent attainments. The Legislature was the first step 
to fame, and political fame then the most desired and the most 
sought. Party was rancorous in its spirit, producing intense excite- 
ment, pervading every bosom, male and female, to the extremes of 
the State — an excitement which so stamped itself upon the hearts of 
the entire people as to endure, and to mark their character and 
opinions even until to-day. 

Lumpkin was very decided in his opinions, and open in their 
expression, yet there was none of that empoisoned bitterness in these 
expressions so characteristic of political aspirants in that day. Such 
was alien to his kindly nature ; and if it had not been, there were 
other causes to estop him from any such indulgence. His family was 
large. There were eight brothers ; only one of these was younger 
than himself; these were about equally divided in political sentiment, 
and they, at least some of them, less amiable or less considerate than 
himself. He was the favorite of all, and was continually in communi- 
cation with all of them, and was really the moderator of the family, 
and the healer of its feuds. At this time, too, the deep morality of 
his nature was growing into piety, and this sentiment was mellowing 
from his heart even the little of unkindness that had ever found a 
place there. 



1/6 THE MEMORIES OF 

At twenty-five years of age he was sent, by an almost unanimous 
vote, to the Legislature from his county. He came with an exag- 
gerated reputation for talent, especially for oratorical talent, and 
many of his friends feared he would not be able to sustain it in that 
body, where there were many of age and experience, with characters 
already long established for learning and eloquence, and also many 
young men from different parts of the State, who, like himself, had 
already won fame for high talent. Among these was Robert Augustus 
Bell, in sight of whose grave I write these lines. He passed away 
in early life, but Georgia never produced a brighter or a nobler 
spirit. There were also Charles Dougherty, (who died young, but 
not without making his mark,) William Law, Hopkins Holsey, and 
others, who have honored themselves and the State by eminent 
services on the Bench and at the Bar, and in the councils of their 
native and other States to which many of them emigrated. 

At the very opening of the session, Lumpkin took position with 
the first on the floor of the House of Representatives. His first 
speech was one of thrilling eloquence, and, before its conclusion, 
had emptied the Senate chamber ; many of its oldest and most 
talented members crowding about him, and listening with delight. 

The memory of that day revives with the freshness of yesterday. 
Two or three only remain with me now, to recall the delight with 
which all hearts were filled who acted, politically, with Lumpkins, 
as the beautiful and cogent sentences thrilled from his lips, with a 
trembling fervor, which came from an excitement born of the heart, 
and which went to the heart. Bell, Brailsford, Dougherty, Rumbert, 
and Baxter, who, with myself, grouped near him, all are in the grave, 
save only I, and, standing a few weeks since by the fresh mould that 
covers Joseph H. Lumpkin, and yesterday by the grave of Bell, my 
mind wandered back to the old State House, and to those who were 
with me there. Separated for more than forty years from the home 
of my birth, being with, and becoming a part of another people — 
a noble, generous, and gallant people — and almost forgetting my 
mother tongue, these had faded away almost into forgetfulness ; but, 
tottering with years, and full of sorrows, I am here amid the scenes 
made lovely and memorable by their presence, when we were all 
young and hopeful. They come back to me, and now, while I write, 
it seems their spirits float in the air of my chamber, and smile at me. 
Why is my summons delayed so long ? All that made life lovely is 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 77 

gone — youth, fortune, and household gods. My children are in 
bloody graves — she who bore them preceded them to eternity ; yet 
I live on, and sigh, and remember, while imagination peoples with 
the past the scenes about me. The faces, the jest, and merry laugh 
come again ; I see and hear them again. Oblivion veils away the 
interval of forty-five years, and all is as it was. Oh, could the illu- 
sion last till death shall make it truth ! It is^ I feel, but a foretaste 
of the reality soon to be, when hearts with hearts shall group again, 
and the reunion of sundered ties be eternal. 

Lumpkin served a few sessions in the Legislature, and retired from 
public life to devote his entire attention to his profession. He had 
married, almost as soon as he was admitted to the Bar, one to whom 
he had been attached from boyhood, and the cares of a family were 
increasing and demanding his attention and efforts. No man ever 
more faithfully discharged these duties. 

The judiciary of Georgia had consisted of two courts only — the 
superior, and inferior or county court — from the organization of 
the State. The country had long felt the want of a supreme court, 
for the correction of errors, and to render uniform the decisions 
upon the law throughout the State, which, under the prevailing sys- 
tem, had become very diverse, and which was becoming grievously 
oppressive. Finally it was determined by the Legislature to establish 
a supreme court. After the passage of the law, however, its organ- 
ization was incomplete for the want of judges. Party was distracting 
the councils of the State, and was carried into everything, and each 
party desired a controlling influence in this court, and their united 
co-operation in selecting judges could only be effected by the domi- 
aant party consenting to Joseph H. Lumpkin's accepting the chief- 
justiceship. He consented to do so, and the organization of the 
court was completed. This position, under repeated elections, he 
continued to hold until the day of his death, which occurred in the 
spring of 1867. 

No man, perhaps, ever had the confidence of a people in the dis- 
charge of a high judicial duty more than had Joseph H. Lumpkin. 
His public duties were discharged with the most scrupulous con- 
scientiousness, as were all of those pertaining to his private life and 
relations. He died in the neighborhood of his birth, and where he 
had continued to live through his whole life, passing through time 
with the companions of his childhood, and preserving their confi- 



178 THE MEMORIES OF 

dence and affection to the last. His death was sudden, and deeply 
mourned throughout the State, which had delighted so long to honor 
him. His name is identified with her history, as one of her brightest 
and best men. 

The talents of Judge Lumpkin were of a high order, and though 
he distinguished himself as a jurist, they were certainly more fitted 
for the forum than the bench. Those who knew him best, and who 
were best fitted to judge, unite in the opinion that his eminence in 
political life would have been greater than that which distinguished 
him as a judge. He was a natural orator, and his oratory was of the 
highest order. His ideas flowed too fast for the pen, and he thought 
more vividly when on his feet, and in the midst of a multitude, than 
•when in the privacy of his chamber, ^is language was naturally 
ornate and eloquent, and the stream of thought which flowed on in 
declamation, brightened and grew, in its progress, to a mighty 
volume. This, with the fervor of intense feeling which distinguished 
his eff"orts, made them powerfully effective. In toning down these 
feelings, and repressing the ornate and beautiful to the cold, concise 
legal opinion, his delivery lost not only its beauty, but much of its 
strength and power. He might have been less useful, but certainly 
he would have been more distinguished, had he pursued the bent of 
his genius. Abilities like Lumpkin's must succeed respectably, if 
directed to any pursuit ; and even should they be prostituted to base 
and dishonorable purposes, they will distinguish the possessor above 
the herd. 

His temperament was nervous, his sensibility acute, and his senti- 
ments exalted. Fluent, with great command of language, he was 
peculiarly gifted for display in debate, and it was supposed, when he 
first came into the Legislature, that he would soon rise to the first 
position in the national councils. But he determined for himself a 
different field ; and, in view of his eminent services as an able and 
conscientious judge, who shall say he did not choose wisely ? 

In an almost adjoining county to that of the residence of Judge 
Lumpkin, was coming forward, in the profession of law, another 
gifted son of Georgia — Walter T. Colquitt. He was a compeer, at 
the Bar, of Chief-Justice Lumpkin. They were admitted to practice 
about the same time. He was a native of the county of Hancock. 
His mother was the only sister of the eight brothers Holt, every one 
of whom was distinguished for probity and worth. They all lived 



FIFTY YEA R S. I 79 

and died in the State, and every one of them was a representative 
man. They have all left descendants but one, and none yet have 
stained the name. As their ancestors, they are energetic, honest, 
and most worthy citizens. 

Colquitt gave evidence, when very young, of his future career. 
As a boy, he was wild and full of mirth, but little inclined to study. 
He was fond of sport of every kind, and in everything to which his 
mind and inclinations turned, he would be first. Compelled, by 
parental authority, to apply himself, he at once mastered his task, 
and was ready, then, for fun or frolic. Remarkable for physical 
powers, he fondly embarked in all athletic sports, and in all 
excelled. Bold and fearless, he was the leader in all adventures of 
mischief, and always met the consequences in the same spirit. It 
was remarked of him, when a boy, by one who knew him well, that 
in all he did he played "high, game," never "low, Jack." 

In the wildness of his mischief there was always discoverable bold- 
ness and mind. At school and at college, though rarely winning an 
honor, he was always admitted by his fellows to possess superior 
abilities. These abilities were manifest more in the originality of his 
ideas, and their peculiar exemplification in his conduct, than in the 
sober, every-day manner of thought and action. His mind was ver- 
satile, and seemed capable of grasping and analyzing any subject. 
Quick to perceive and prompt to execute, yielding obedience to no 
dogma, legal or political, he followed the convictions of his mind, 
without regard to precedent or example. His knowledge of human 
nature seemed intuitive, and his capacity of adaptation was without 
limit. At the period when he commenced the practice of law, the 
successful abilities in the profession were forensic. Every case was 
tried by a jury, and the law made juries judges of law and fact. 
The power to control and direct these was the prime qualification 
of a lawyer, and nature had bestowed this, in an eminent degree, 
upon Colquitt. There were few more eminfent as advocates, or 
more successful as practitioners, though his legal attainments were 
never of a very high order. He was elevated to the bench, where 
he remained but a short time, feeling that this was no situation for 
the display of his peculiar powers, nor the proper or successful 
course for the gratification of his ambition. He had, at a previous 
time, united himself with the Methodist Church, and was licensed to 
preach. It was his habit to open his court, each morning, with 



I So THE MEMORIES OF 

l)rayer, and not unfrequently, during the week of his court, in each 
county of his circuit, to preach two or three sermons. He was a 
general of the militia, and would come down from the bench to 
review a regiment or brigade. It was this discharge of his multifarious 
duties which prompted an aged sister of his church, when the great 
men of the State were being discussed by the venerable ladies of a 
certain neighborhood, to claim the palm for Colquitt. 

"Ah! you may talk of your great men, but none on 'em is equal 
to brother Colquitt ; for he, in our county, tried a man for his life, 
and sentenced him to be hung, preached a sermon, mustered all the 
men in the county, married two people, and held a prayer-meeting, 
all in one day. Now, wa'n't that great? " 

Before a jury he was unequalled. His knowledge of men enabled 
him to determine the character of every juror, and his versatility to 
adapt his argument or address to their feelings and prejudices so 
effectually as to secure a verdict in mere compliment to the advo- 
cate. He left the bench to enter the political arena. It was here 
he found the field nature designed him for. Before the people he 
was omnipotent. At this period Dawson, Cooper, Colquitt, Cobb, 
Stephens, and Toombs were before the people — all men of talent, 
and all favorites jn the State. This was especially true of Dawson, 
Cobb, and Stephens, and no men better deserved the public favor. 

Very soon after he went into Congress, he, with Cooper and 
Black, abandoned the Whig party. At the approaching election 
they canvassed the State, and justified their course before the people. 
There was no middle ground on which to stand. To abandon one 
party, was to go over, horse, foot, and dragoons, to the other, which 
was always ready to welcome new converts of talent and popularity. 
These three became, in the canvass, the champions of Democracy, 
and fiercely waged the war in antagonism with their former allies. 
In this contest were made manifest the great abilities of Colquitt, 
Toombs, Stephens, Cobb, and Herschel V. Johnson. 

Subsequently, Colquitt was elected to the United States Senate, 
where he was distinguished as a debater and leading man of the 
Democratic party ; but his talents and peculiar manner were better 
suited for the debates of the House of Representatives, and the 
hustings. 

Lumpkin was ardent and persuasive. Colquitt was equally ardent, 
but more aggressive. Where Lumpkin solicited with a burning 



FIFTYYEARS. l8l 

pathos, Colquitt demanded with the bitterest sarcasm. Lumpkin 
was slow and considerate ; Colquitt was rapid and overwhelming. 
The one was the sun's soft, genial warmth ; the other, the north 
■rtrind's withering blast. Colquitt was remarkable for daring intre- 
pidity ; Lumpkin for collected firmness. Lumpkin persuaded ; Col- 
quitt frightened. Both were brave, but Colquitt was fiercely so. 
Lumpkin was mild, but determined. Unaggressive himself, the dig- 
nity and gentleness of his character repelled it in others. The 
consequence was, that he passed through life without strife with his 
fellow-man, while Colquitt was frequently in personal conflict with 
those as impetuous as himself. The open frankness and social nature 
of Colquitt won him many friends, and of that description most 
useful to politicians — friends who Avere devoted, who felt for, and 
preferred him to any other man. His features were versatile, and 
variable as an April day, betraying every emotion of his mind — 
especially his eyes, which were soft or fierce, as the passion of the 
heart sprang to view in them, and spoke his soul's sensations. His 
oratory was playful, awakening wild mirth in his auditors, and again 
it was impetuous and sarcastic, overwhelming with invective and 
denunciation. 

Charles J. Jenkins, a compeer of Lumpkin and Colquitt, was essen- 
tially different from both in many of the features of his character. 
His mind was more logical, more analytical, and capable of deeper 
research. He had little ambition, and whenever he was before the 
people, it was when his friends thrust him there. The instinctive 
morality of his nature, like that of Lumpkin, would never permit the 
compromise of conscience or dignity of character so often the 
case with men of ardent natures and intense ambition. Eminently 
cool in debate, he never made any attempt at forensic display, but 
confined himself exclusively to the logic of his subject. He clearly 
saw his way, and carefully went along, spurning ornament or volu- 
bility, and only compelling into service words which clearly and 
succinctly conveyed his ideas, and these only elucidated the subject- 
matter he was discussing. Strictly honest, and equally truthful, he 
never deviated, under any circumstances, from what he believed his 
duty. Only for a short time was he in the Legislature, and then he 
displayed in most exciting times the great virtues of his nature. 

Upon one occasion, the party with which he acted determined, to 
defeat a certain measure, to leave the chamber in a body, and break 
i6 



l82 THE MEMORIES OF 

the quorum. It was the only means in their power to prevent a 
measure which they deemed wrong in principle and injurious to the 
public interest. Jenkins thought such extreme measures wrong, and 
entirely unjustifiable. Though as much opposed to the views of the 
majority as any member of his party, he refused to participate in 
their action, and was the only member of the party who persistently 
remained in his seat. This conduct was censured by his party friends, 
and he immediately resigned his seat and returned to his constituency, 
who, knowing and appreciating the great worth of the man, returned 
him at once to his seat under a new election. In all the relations of life 
the same traits of character have distinguished him. While at the 
Bar, his rank was the first ; this, combined with his integrity and great 
firmness, made him so conspicuous before the people of the State, 
that he was placed on the bench of the Supreme Court — a position 
he distinguished by his great legal attainments, dignity, and purity. 

The political opinions of Judge Jenkins were in many of their 
features unpopular. He was always opposed to universal suffrage, 
and made no secret of his sentiments. He was opposed to an 
elective judiciary, and to mob-rule in every shape. He despised 
alike the arts and the humiliation of party politicians, and was never 
a man to accept for public trust any man whose only recommenda- 
tion to public favor was his availability, because of his popularity 
with the masses. He was taken from the supreme bench to fill the 
gubernatorial chair of the State, and no man, not even Jackson, 
Early, or Troup, ever more dignified this elevated position — none 
ever had the same trying difficulties to encounter. Chosen by the 
people at a period when civil war had distracted the government and 
uprooted all the landmarks so long the guide for those who preceded 
him — when a manifest determination of the so-called Congress, repre- 
senting but two-thirds of the States, was apparent to usurp all power 
— when the State governments of ten States, though that of their 
people, were threatened with military usurpation, Jenkins remained 
firm to his convictions of duty. The credit of the State had never 
suffered while under his guardianship ; a large amount was in her 
treasury ; this was an objective point for the usurpers. He met the 
military .satrap, and was assured of his intentions. Satisfied of his 
insincerity and dishonesty, knowing he held the power of the 
bayonet, and would be unscrupulous in its use, calm as a Roman 
senator he defied the power of this unprincipled minion of a base, 



FIFTY YEARS. 183 

corrupt, and unconstitutional power, and deliberately removed the 
treasure of the State, and applied it to the liquidation of her obliga- 
tions. Hurled from the office bestowed by his fellow-citizens, so far 
as he could he protected their interests, at the hazard of the horrors 
of Fort Pulaski and the sweat-box — the favorite instruments of torture 
of this infamous defendant of an irresponsible Congress, and now for 
personal safety, exiled from home and country, finds protection 
under a foreign flag. This one act alone will be sufficient to immor- 
talize the name of Charles J. Jenkins, and to swell with pride the 
heart of every true Georgian who aided to place such a man in such 
a position, at such a time. Governor Jenkins still lives, and if the 
prayers of a virtuous and oppressed people may avail on high, will 
be spared to reap in better days his reward in their gratitude. 

An exalted intellect, unaccompanied with exalted virtue, can never 
constitute greatness. In whatever position placed, or whatever 
inducements persuade, virtue and a conscientious conviction of right 
must regulate the mind and conduct of man to make him great. 
The tortuous course of politics, made so by unprincipled men, 
renders the truly upright man usually a poor politician. He who 
possesses the capacity to discern the true interests of a country, and 
who will virtuously labor to secure and promote those interests, defy- 
ing opposition and fearlessly braving the calumnies of interested, cor- 
rupt men, organized into parties — which so often lose sight of the 
interests of their country, in promoting party ends, or from inflamed 
passions — is the great man. He whose pedestal is virtue, and whose 
action is honest, secures the respect of his own age, and becomes 
the luminary of succeeding ages. Stern honesty often imposes 
unpleasant duties — strict obedience to its behests, not unfrequently 
involves apparent inconsistencies of conduct ; but the conscientious 
man will disregard these in doing what his judgment determines 
right — the only real consistency which sustains a man in his own 
estimation, and leaves no bitter reflections for the future. To sub- 
serve the cause of right, is always a duty — not so the cause of party 
or selfish interest. All men respect the right, but many have not 
the virtue to resist wrong. Ambition prompts for success the expe- 
dient : and hence the laxity of political morals. This is slipping the 
cable that the ship may swing from her anchorage and drift with the 
tide ; any minnow may float with the current, but it requires a strong 
fish to stem and progress against the stream. A man, to brave 



1 84 THE MEMORIES OF 

obloquy and public scorn, requires strong moral courage ; but when 
his judgment convinces him that he is right, and when he feels that 
his intentions are pure, conscientious, and sincere, this may ruffle 
him for a time, but never permanently disturbs his peace or injures 
his reputation. The truly great are only known by nobly resisting 
every temptation to wrong, and braving the world's condemnation 
in pursuing and sustaining the right. It is the soul to which greatness 
belongs, not the mind. This latter is too often, in its transcendent 
greatness, coupled with a mean and degraded soul, which stimulates 
the mind's power to the corruption of the masses, and the destruc- 
tion of public morals, undermining the very basis of society and 
government. 

The combination of a great mind and a great soul constitutes the 
truly great, and the life of such a man creates a public sentiment 
which, like an intense essence, permeates all it touches, leaving its 
fragrance upon all. Such a man was George M. Troup, such a man 
is Charles J. Jenkins ; and the incense of his character will be a 
fragrance purifying and delighting the land when he shall have passed 
away. The exalted abilities of his mind, the great purity of his 
heart, the noble elevation of his sentiments, and his exquisite con- 
scientiousness, will be an honor and an example to be remembered 
and emulated by the coming generations of his native land. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A REVOLUTIONARY VETERAN. 

Tapping Reeve — James Gould — Colonel Benjamin Talmage— The Exe- 
cution OF Major Andre — Character of Washington — A Breach of 
Discipline — Burr and Hamilton — Margaret Moncrief — Cowles 
Meade. 

FIFTY years ago, the only law-school in the United States was 
taught by Tapping Reeve and James Gould, at Litchfield, Con- 
necticut. The young men of the South, destined for the profession of 
law, usually commenced their studies in the office of some eminent 
practitioner at home, and, after a year or so spent in reading the 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 85 

elementary authors, they finished by attending the lectures at this 
school. A course of lectures occupied a year. Then they were 
considered prepared to commence the practice. 

Many of the young men of Georgia, at that day, received their 
education at the North. Most of those who selected law as a pro- 
fession, finished at the school in Litchfield. Few remain in life at 
this day who graduated there. Thomas Flornoy and Nicholas 
Ware were among the first, who read law there, who were natives of 
Georgia. William Gumming succeeded them. Then followed L. 
Q. C. Lamar, William C. Dawson, Thaddeus Goode Holt, and 
many others of less distinction, all of whom are gone save Judge 
Holt, who remains a monument and a memory of the class and 
character of the Bar of Georgia fifty years ago, when talent and 
unspotted integrity characterized its members universally, and when 
the private lives and public conduct of lawyers were a withering 
rebuke to the reiterated slanders upon the profession — when Craw- 
ford, Berrien, Harris, Cobb, Longstreet, the brothers Campbell, 
and a host of others, shed lustre upon it. 

1820 was spent by the writer at the law-school at Litchfield, in 
company with William Crawford Banks, Hopkins Holsey, Samuel 
W. Oliver, and James Clark, from Georgia. All are in the grave 
except Clark, who, like the writer, lives in withered age. His 
career has been a successful and honorable one, and I trust a 
happy one. 

During this probation it was my fortune to form many acquaint- 
ances among the young and the old whom I met there, and from 
them to learn much, especially from the old. At that time there 
resided in the pleasant little village, Governor Oliver Wolcott, Ben- 
jamin Talmage, and my distinguished preceptors, Tapping Reeve 
and James Gould. 

Colonel Benjamin Talmage was a distinguished officer in the 
American army of the Revolution, and was a favorite aide of Wash- 
ington. It was he who was charged with the painful duty of super- 
intending the execution of Major Andre, who suffered as a spy. He 
was a tall, venerable man, and though cumbered with years, when I 
knew him, was active and energetic in attending to his business. 
The first time I ever met him, he was standing in front of his yard- 
gate, shaping a gate-pin with a small hatchet, which he used as a 
knife, to reduce it to the desired size and form. One end he held in 
16* 



l86 THE MEMORIES OF 

his left hand ; the other he rested against the trunk of a sycamore- 
tree, which grew near by and shaded the sidewalk. I knew his 
character and his services. As I approached him, my feelings were 
sublimated with the presence of a man who had been the aide to 
and confidant of George Washington. He was neatly attired in 
gray small-clothes. His white hair was carefully combed over tiie 
bald portion of his head, as, hatless, he pursued his work. His 
position wa% fronting me, and I caught his brilliant gray eyes as he 
looked up from his work to know who was passing. Involuntarily 
I stopped, and, lifting my hat from my head, bowed respectfully to 
him, and passed him uncovered, as he returned my salutation with 
that ease and dignity characteristic of the gentleman of the old 
school. To-day that towering, manly form is present to my view, 
as it stood before me then. He inquired of Judge Gould, his imme- 
diate neighbor, who I was, and was pleased to mention my respectful 
demeanor toward him. My reply, when told of this, was : " I should 
have despised myself, could I have acted otherwise toward one so 
eminent, and who was the confidential friend of Washington." This 
was reported to the venerablq colonel, who showed his appreciation 
of my conduct by extending to me many kindnesses during my stay 
in the village. 

By his own hearth-stone I have listened with eager interest to the 
narration of Andre's capture and execution. He was opposed, with 
Alexander Hamilton, to the hanging of Andre, and always con- 
tended that it was not clearly established that he had come into the 
American lines as a spy. Andre, when captured, wore his uni- 
form under an overcoat, which concealed it, and *the papers found 
on his person only proved that he sought to deliver them to Arnold. 
The day before his execution he solemnly declared his only object 
was an interview with Arnold, or, should he fail in this, to contrive 
to send him the papers which had been found upon him. When he 
knew the commander-in-chief had refused him clemency, through 
Colonel Talmage he appealed to Washington to let him be shot, 
and die a soldier's death — not to permit him to perish as a felon 
upon the gallows. Colonel Talmage, when he stated this wish to 
him, assured him it would be granted. Every effort was made, by 
his officers and aides, to induce the granting of the request, but in 
vain. "And never in my life," said Colonel Talmage, "have I had 
imposed upon me so painful a dut}- as communicating this fact to the 



FIFTYYEARS. 187 

young and gallant officer. He saw my embarrassment and feelings, 
and, rising from his seat, said : 'Colonel, I thank you for the generous 
interest you have taken in my case. It has proved of no avail ; yet I 
am none the less grateful.' He paused a moment, when he continued : 
* It is hard to die, and to die thus. My time is short, and I must 
employ it in writing to my family, and must request that you will 
see my letters forwarded to headquarters.' I promised; when he 
extended his hand, and, grasping mine, asked : * Is this our last 
parting, or shall I see you to-morrow?' I told him it had been 
made my duty to superintend his execution. ' We will part at the 
grave,' he said, and, covering his face with his hands, sank, sob- 
bing, into his chair. 

"I went away sorrowing, and spent a sleepless night. When the 
hour had arrived, I waited on him in his prison, and found him cool 
and prepared for the sacrifice. We both felt too much for words, 
and there was little said. I remember he asked me to procure his 
watch, which had been taken from him, if possible, and send it to 
headquarters. He desired his family to have it." 

" Did you ever get it ? " I asked. 

The colonel bit his lip in shame for hiai who had it, and only 
answered: "Never." 

"The grave was prepared near the gallows, and the open coffin 
was by it. As Andre approached, he saw it, and a shudder ran 
through his frame. Turning to me, he said : ' I am to be buried 
there. One more request, colonel. Mark it ; so that when this 
cruel conflict shall have ended, my friends may find it ! ' He then 
shook hands with me, and, with unfaltering steps, went to the 
scaffold." 

I heard this narrative many times, and with its ending the white 
kerchief about the old man's neck was loosed, and the moisture from 
his eyes told that the feelings as well as the memory of that day 
still survived. He would a moment after continue: "Washington 
was a stern man — he was a hard man — slow to form opinions or 
resolutions ; but once formed, there was no power under heaven to 
move him. He never formed either until his judgment was convinced 
of the right. There was less of impulse in his nature than in that of 
any man I ever knew. I served by his side for years, and I never 
saw the least manifestation of passion or surprise. He received the 
information of Arnold's treachery with the same apparent indilTer- 



1 88 TII E M E MORIES OF 

ence that he would an orderly's report ; and with the same indiffer- 
ence of manner signed the death-warrant of Andre. 

"This indifference was marked with a natural sternness, which 
forbid all familiarity to all men. Even Colonel Hamilton, who was 
naturally facetious, never ventured, during his long service, the 
slightest intimacy. Hamilton, whom he esteemed above all men, 
and to whom he gave his entire confidence, always observed in his 
private intercourse, as in his public, the strictest etiquette. This 
cool sternness was natural to him, and its influence was overwhelm- 
ing. The humblest and the highest felt it alike ; inspiring a respect- 
ful awe, commanding a dignified demeanor. He was best beloved 
at a distance, because the qualities of the man were only present, 
and these were purer and more lofty than those given to any other 
man. There is no character of ancient or modern times so con- 
sistent as that of Washington. He was always cool, always slow, 
always sincere. There is no act of his life evincing the influence of 
prejudice. He decided all matters upon evidence, and the unbiassed 
character of his mind enabled him impartially to weigh this evidence, 
and the great strength of his judgment to analyze and apply it. 
He seemed to understand men instinctively, and if he was ever 
deceived in any of those in close association with him, it was Tom 
Jefferson. Burr had not been on his staff ten days before he under- 
stood him perfectly, and he very soon got rid of him. Of all the 
officers of the Continental army, General Greeiie was his favorite ; 
and he was right, for Greene was a great military riian — far superior 
to Washington himself, and none knew it better than he. I remem- 
ber to have heard him say that Greene was the only man in the 
army who could retrieve the mistakes of Gates and save the Southern 
country. The result verified the statement. 

" Washington's lenity never extended to the excusing of any pal- 
pable neglect of duty. The strict regularity of his own private 
character -was carried into everything connected with his public 
duties. However much he esteemed any man, it was for his worth in 
his especial position, and not because of any peculiarity of bearing 
or properties of heart. That he appreciated the higher qualities of 
the heart, is certainly true — but for what they were worth always — 
and neither quality of head or heart created a prejudice which would 
lead him to excuse any neglect of duty or laxity of morals. He was 
not without heart, but it was slow to be moved, and never so moved 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 89 

as to warp or obscure his judgment, or influence the discharge of 
his duty. 

" Mrs. Washington was less amiable than her husband, and at 
times would sadly tax his patience — she never forgot that she was 
wealthy when she married him, and would sometimes allude to it in 
no very pleasant manner to her husband ; who, notwithstanding, 
bore with her with remarkable patience. I do not remember ever 
to have seen General Washington laugh ; sometimes a faint smile 
would tinge his features ; but very soon they returned to the sedate- 
ness and gravity of expression common to them ; and though they 
rarely brightened with a smile, they were never deformed with a 
frown. There was in their expression a fixity indicative of his 
character, a purpose settled and unalterable. Of all the men I 
have ever known, Washington was the only one who never descended 
from the stilts of his dignity, or relaxed the austerity of his bearing. 
It has been said that he swore at General Charles Lee at the battle . 
of Dfandywinc — I could never have it authenticated. He asked /' ^-^***' 
excitedly of General Lee, by what ill-timed mistake the disaster 
had occurred, which was forcing his retreat. Lee was a passionate, 
bad man, and disliked to serve under Washington's command. He 
had served with distinction in the British army in Europe, and felt, in 
adopting the cause of the colonies, he should have been proffered 
the chief command. There had been an intrigue at Philadelphia, 
headed by Dr. Rush, aided by others, to prejudice Congress against 
the commander-in-chief, to have him displaced, that Lee might suc- 
ceed him. If Washington was aware of this, it never escaped him 
to any of his military family; and certainly never influenced his 
conduct toward Lee — for he had confidence in his military abilities, 
and always gave him the position where the most honor was to be 
won. Lee's reply to Washington was violent, profane, and insolent. 
He said to General Lafayette that his reply was : * No man can boast 
of possessing more of that damned rascally virtue than yourself.' 
He was arrested, court-martialed, and by its decision, suspended for 
one year from command. He never returned to the service, but 
retired to the interior of Virginia, and lived in great seclusion until 
his death. 

"Toward the young officers Washington was more indulgent than 
to the older and more experienced. He would not see the smaller 
improprieties of conduct in these, unless brought officially to his 



1 90 T li E M E M O R I E S O F 

notice. Then they were uniformly punished. He frequently coun- 
selled and advised them, but was ever severe toward intemperance, 
with old and young. 

" Upon one occasion, a certain Maryland colonel came suddenly 
and quite unexpectedly upon the General, who was taking a walk. 
The colonel attempted to salute, but in doing so, disclosed his ine- 
briety. 'You are intoxicated, sir,' said the General, with a humor- 
ous twinkle of the eye. The colonel replied : * I am glad you 
informed me, General ; I will go to my quarters before I make an 
ass of myself;' turned and walked away. Without the slightest 
movement of feature the General continued his walk. Nothing more 
was heard of it until the battle of Monmouth, in which the colonel 
distinguished himself. The day after, in going the grand-rounds, he 
approached the colonel, and remarked : ' Your gallantry of yesterday 
excuses your late breach of discipline ; ' and saluting him, passed on. 

" In a conversation over the mess-table, at West Point, some 
severe remarks upon the conduct of Washington, in hanging Andre, 
escaped Hamilton. He said, warmly, that it was cruelly unjust, and 
would assuredly sully the future fame of the General ; that he felt 
aggrieved that the ardent solicitations of his staff, and most of the 
fieid-ofificers, in the unfortunate young man's behalf, had been so 
little regarded. These remarks reached the ears of the General. 
We were not aware of this, until some weeks subsequently he sum- 
moned his staff to his presence, and stated the fact. 

" ' You will remember, gentlemen, that Captain Asgill, who was a 
prisoner, and sentenced, by lot, to die, in retaliation for the cold- 
blooded murder of Captain Hale, by the orders of a British officer. 
You, and many of the officers of the army, interceded to save his life. 
His execution was, in consequence, respited. The heart-rending 
appeal of his mother and sisters, communicated to me in letters from 
those high-bred and accomplished women, determined me to lenity 
in his case, and he was pardoned. Immediately upon the heels of 
this pardon comes an intrigue to seduce from his duty and alle- 
giance a major-general, distinguished for services and capacity; and 
Major Andre is the instrument to carry out this intrigue — to com- 
municate their plans to the traitor, and to consummate the arrange- 
ment. These plans were to seize, treacherously, the person of the 
general commanding the American forces, and carry him a prisoner 
to the enemy's headquarters. Lenity to this man would have been 



FIFTY YEARS. I9I 

a high crime against Congress, the army, and the country, which 
could not have been justified. I regretted the necessity as much as 
any of you ; but mine was the responsibility, not yours. Its being a 
painful duty did not make it less a duty. Not mine alone, but the 
safety of the army depended upon the discharge of this duty — a 
duty recognized by all nations in civilized warfare. I felt it such ; 
I discharged it, and am satisfied with it. I hope I am superior to 
any apprehension of future censure for a faithful discharge of an 
imperative duty.' Waving his hand, he bade us ' Good evening.* 

" General Washington, upon all important movements, sought the 
opinions of his staff, as well as those of the general officers of his 
command. This was not for want of reliance upon his own judg- 
ment, but from a desire to see the matter through every light in 
which it could be presented. These opinions were not unfrequently 
asked in writing. They were always carefully studied, and due 
weight given to them, especially when they differed from his own. 
His mind was eminently analytical, and always free from prejudice, 
and to these facts is to be attributed the almost universal correctness 
of his judgment upon all subjects which he had examined. With 
regard to men, I never knew him to ask another's opinion ; nor was 
he ever the man to give utterance to his own, unless it became neces- 
sary as a duty. I knew, from the time I entered his military family, 
of his high appreciation of Hamilton's abilities ; and the frequent con- 
currence of opinion between them sometimes (and especially with 
those not entirely acquainted with him) induced a belief that Hamil- 
ton formed his opinions, or, as Arnold once expressed it, was his 
thinker. Yet there were many occasions upon which they differed, 
and widely differed ; and never did Washington surrender his own 
opinion and adopt that of Hamilton. I never thought the feelings 
of Washington toward him were more than respect for his exalted 
abilities. I do not believe a kinder or more social attachment ever 
was felt by him, and I am positively sure these were the feelings of 
Hamilton for Washington. 

" His respect for the abilities of Colonel Burr was quite as exalted 
a-s for tho^e of Hamilton ; but he had no confidence in his honesty 
or truth, and, consequently, very soon got rid of him. Burr's liaison 
with Margaret Moncrief destroyed entirely the little regard left for 
him in the mind of Washington. I asked Colonel Talmage if Burr 
and Hamilton ever were friends. They were very close friends 



192 THE MEMORIES OF 

apparently ; but it was palpable that each entertained a jealousy of 
the other, however much they strove to conceal it. They were both 
ambitious, and felt the way to preferment was through the favor of 
the commander-in-chief. Burr was the more sensitive and the more 
impulsive of the two. They knew the abilities of each other, and 
they knew these were highly appreciated by the General ; and at the 
moment when this jealousy was likely to interfere with this friend- 
ship, Burr left the position of aide to the General. He knew he had 
forfeited the confidence of Washington, and he figured in the army 
very little after this. The rivalry, however, did not cease here, nor 
did the secret enmity in their hearts die. The world is not aware 
of the true cause of the hatred between them, and it may never be. 

V You are aware," continued the colonel, *'that your preceptor. 
Judge Reeve, is the brother-in-law of Colonel Burr. If I speak 
freely of him, it is because I know him, and because you seem 
curious to pry into these secret histories of national men. It is not 
to be repeated to offend Judge Reeve, or disturb our relations as 
friends ; for we are such, and have been for fifty years. 

"Colonel Burr has ever been remarkable for abilities from his 
boyhood. Reeve and the celebrated Samuel Lathrop Mitchell were 
his classmates, and agree that he had no equal in college. They 
were educated at Princeton. Burr showed not only talent, but 
application, and a most burning ambition. He showed, too, that 
he was already unscrupulous in the use of means to accomplish his 
object. There are stories told of his college-life very discreditable 
to his fame. He was as remarkable in his features as in his mind. 
His capacious forehead, aquiline nose, and piercingly brilliant eyes, 
black as night, with a large, flexible mouth, Grecian in form, 
made him extremely handsome as a youth. His manners were 
natural and elegant, and his conversational powers unequalled. 
They are so to-day. Think of these gifts in a man uninfluenced by 
principle, and only obedient to the warmer passions. He ever 
shunned collective society, and seemed (for the time, at least) 
totally absorbed by one or two only. The eloquence of manner, 
as the persuasion of words, was in him transcendent. The whis- 
pered sophisms of his genius burned into the heart, and it was 
remarked of him, by one wise and discreet, that he could, in fewer 
words, win the sympathy and start to tears a female auditor, than 
any preacher in the land. From boyhood he seemed to have the 



FIFTY YEARS. .193 

key to every heart he desired to unlock. Fatal gift! and terribly 
fatal did it prove to many a victim, and especially to that gifted but 
frail girl — Margaret Moncrief. 

** Margaret Moncrief was the daughter of an officer of the British 
army, and had been left with that old veteran, Putnam, after this officer 
was a prisoner of war. Hamilton formed an attachment for her, 
and Burr, more from vanity than any other feeling, determined to 
win her away from him. She was, for her sex, as remarkable as 
Burr for his ; her education was very superior, her reading as exten- 
sive as most professional men, and entirely out of the line of ordi- 
nary female reading ; she was familiar with the entire range of 
science — her person in form was perfect, in features exquisitely 
beautiful. She, too, possessed the art to steal away the affections of 
any one around whom she threw her spell. Apparently unconscious 
of her natural gifts, she displayed them without reserve, and so art- 
lessly, as to lure and beguile almost to frenzy such temperaments 
as those of Burr and Hamilton. Never before had Burr met his 
equal, and his vanity and ambition were equally stimulated to 
triumph in her conquest, and ere he was aware of it, what had been 
commenced in levity, had become a passion which held him in 
chains. The sequel was the ruin of both. Here commenced the 
heart-hatred which terminated in the duel and the death of Hamilton. 

" 1 know there was a romantic story, that gained credit with many, 
that the influence of Miss Moncrief had corrupted Burr, and that 
she was acting as a spy, and from Burr obtained all the informa- 
tion she desired of the movements of the American army. Such 
was the credit attached to this story, that General Putnam was ques- 
tioned rather closely on the subject of the intercourse between them. 
It was his opinion that it was without foundation, and that it was 
simply a love affair. It was also stated, and this Hamilton credited, 
that Burr was preparing to leave the country with the lady, and there 
were some circumstances which seemed to warrant such suspicion. 
To this day, there are ladies who were at that time in communica- 
tion with Miss Moncrief, who mention that every preparation had 
been made, that her wardrobe had been removed from her apart- 
ment, and that it was carried to those of Colonel Burr, and that they 
had been turned back in the harbor by a sentry-boat, when striving 
with a solitary oarsman to reach a British man-of-war, in the lower 
harbor of the bay of New York. There was never any proof of 
17 N 



194 THE MEMORIES OF 

this, however, and I imagine it was only a gossiping story of Madame 
Rumor. 

" Of the sincerity of the attachment on the part of the lady, her 
subsequent confessions are the only proof; and at the time of making 
these confessions, such was her position that little credit could be 
given them. But that Colonel Burr was ever seriously attached to 
her, those who knew him best scarcely believed. Men of his char- 
acter rarely, if ever, have serious and sincere attachment for any 
woman. To gratify his vanity he would court the affections of any 
woman whose beauty and accomplishments had attracted him. It 
was always for base purposes Burr professed love. Such men too 
frequently win upon the regards of women, and occupy high and 
■enviable positions in female society; but their love is diffusive, and 
for the individual only for a time. In truth, they are incapable 
of a deep and sincere affection. The suspicion of woman's purity 
forbids an abiding love; it is a momentary passion, and not an 
elevated and enduring sentiment — not the embalming with the 
heart's riches a pure and innocent being who yields everything to 
love. 

" Colonel Burr was an indifTerent husband toward one of the most 
accomplished and lovable women I ever knew, and who was devoted 
to him, and whose heart he broke. She was the widow of a British 
officer named Provost, I believe, who died in the West Indies ; and 
a more deserving woman, or one more lovely, never went to the 
arms of a rou/, to be kissed and killed. 

" Burr hated Washington, and united himself politically with his 
enemies. There was a close political intimacy between him and 
Jefferson, but never anything like confidence. In their party they 
were rivals ; and after the election which made Jefferson President, 
there was no semblance of intimacy cr friendship between them. 

" Burr believed he was really elected President, and that Jefferson 
had defrauded him in the count of the ballots. He was disappointed 
and dissatisfied with his position and with his party, and immediately 
commenced an intrigue to separate the Western States from the 
Union, and on the west of the mountains and along the waters of 
the Mississippi to establish a separate government, where he hoped 
to fill the 'measure of his ambition, and destroy the power of the 
Union — thus at the same time to crush both the Federal and Repub- 
lican parties, for now he hated both alike. 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 95 

" Hamilton had been his early rival ; he had, as he believed, 
destroyed him with Washington, and that he had been mainly 
instrumental in defeating him with Jefferson for the Presidency. 
There can be no doubt of the fact, that Jefferson had been voted for 
by the colleges for President, and Burr for Vice-President ; but they 
were not so designated on the ballots. They received an equal 
number of votes, and had to be elected, owing to a defect in the 
law at that time, by the House. The balloting continued several 
days. There were sixteen States, and each received eight. Jeffer- 
son was especially obnoxious to the hatred of the Federal party ; 
Burr, though belonging to the Republican party, less so ; and many 
of the leading men in Congress of the Federal party determined to 
take Burr in preference. The strength of this party was mainly in 
the North, and Burr was a Northern man ; and they felt more 
might be expected of him, from Northern interest, than from Jeffer- 
son. But the main cause of the effort was the animosity to Jefferson. 
Washington was viewed as the representative man of the Federal 
party. Jefferson, though he had been a Cabinet minister in his 
Administration, had made no secret of his opposition to the views of 
Washington ; and had aided a clerk in his department to establish a 
newspaper, especially to attack Washington, and to oppose the 
Administration, which he did, in the most bitter and offensive manner. 

" Jefferson was an unscrupulous man — a man of wonderful intel- 
lect and vast attainments, but entirely unprincipled. This editor 
and clerk of Jefferson's, sent daily to the President two copies of 
his pap'er, filled with the vilest abuse of him personally, and of his 
Administration. Much of this was, doubtless, written by Jefferson 
himself. This supposition is the more to be relied on frorfi the fact 
that Washington remonstrated with Jefferson upon the matter, and 
requested the removal of the 'offending clerk, which was refused by 
Jefferson. His declining to remove Jefferson himself, is conclusive 
of the considerate forbearance of this truly great man. These were 
reasons operating upon the minds and feelings of those men who had 
not only sustained Washington through the Revolution, but had stood 
to the support of his Administration, and who concurred with him 
in political opinion and principle. 

'* Mr. Adams had made this party unpojiular by the course pur- 
sued by him in conducting the Government. The Alien Law, and 
the Sedition Law, which obtained his signature, (though I know he 



196 THE MEMORIES OF 

was opposed personally to both,) and the prosecuiions which arose, 
especially under the latter, were very offensive, and entirely at variance 
with the spirit of our people, and indeed of the age, and had so dam- 
aged the Federal party, as to render it odious to a large majority of 
the people. 

"The more considerate of the party believed in the election of 
Burr — the Southern and Northern Democracy would become 
divided. Jefferson was known to be specially the favorite of this 
party. South, and would naturally oppose, himself, and lead his 
party in opposition to the Administration of Burr, and the Fed- 
eral party, uniting in his support, with the Republicans, North, 
would ultimately succeed in recovering the control of the Govern- 
ment. During the ballotings this was fully discussed in the secret 
meetings of the Federalists. The balloting continued from the nth 
to the 17th of February, and only eight States could be carried for 
Mr. Jefferson, six for Burr, and two were divided. It was supposed 
Hamilton's influence would be given to Burr, and he was sent for, 
but to the astonishment of his political friends, it was thrown in 
opposition to Burr. This influenced those controlling the vote of the 
divided States. Burr had entered heartily into the scheme of defeat- 
ing Jefferson. Had Hamilton co-operated with his party, there is 
now no telling what might have been the future political destiny of 
the country. Burr was sworn in as Vice-President, and there is no 
doubt but that the will of the people was substantially carried out. 

"The restlessness of Burr was manifested; he seemed to retire 
from the active participation in politics which had previously been 
his habit — still, however, adhering to the Republican party, and 
opposing strenuously every view or opinion advanced by Hamilton. 
Burr did not take his seat as presiding officer of the Senate, and in 
February, after the election of Jefferson, Hillhouse was chosen to fill 
his place pro tern. After the inauguration of Jefferson, Abraham 
Baldwin was elected to preside as President /;v tern, of the Senate. 
' It had not then become the habit of the Vice-President to preside 
over the Senate ; nor was it the custom for the Vice-President to 
remain at the seat of Government during the sessions of Congress. 
Burr, disgusted with the Republican party, ceased to act with it, and 
went to New York. Here he resumed the practice of law. He was 
never considered a deeply read lawyer, nor was he comparable with 
his rival, Hamilton, in debate, or as an advocate at the Bar. He 



FIFTY YEARS. 1 97 

was adroit and quick, and was rather a qiiibbler than a great 
lawyer. 

■ " You ask me if I thought, or think, he ever deserted the Repub- 
lican party in heart? I answer, no ; for I do not think he ever had 
any well-defined political or moral principle, and was influenced 
always by what he deemed would subserve his own ambitious views ; 
and you ask me, if I ever thought him a great man ? Men greatly 
differ, as you will find as you grow older, and become better 
acquainted with mankind, as to what constitutes a great man. I 
think Colonel Burr's talents were eminently military, and he might, 
in command, have shown himself a great general. His mind was 
sufficiently strong to make him respectable in any profession he 
might have chosen; but his proclivity, mentally, was for arms — 
he loved to direct and control. In very early life he showed 
much skill and tact as an officer in the Canadian campaign"; but he 
wanted those moral traits which give dignity and decision to char- 
acter, and confidence to the public mind. His vacillation of opinion, 
as well as of conduct, was convincing proof that he acted without 
principle, and was influenced by his own selfish views. Man, to be 
great, must act always from principle. Principle, like truth, is a 
straight edge, will admit of no obliquity, is always the same, and 
under all circumstances : conduct squared by principle, and sus- 
tained by truth, inspires respect and confidence, and these attributes, 
though they may and do belong to very ordinary minds, are never- 
theless great essentials to the most powerful in making greatness. 
Great grasp of intellect, fixity of purpose, strong will, high aims, and 
incorruptible moral purity, make a great man. They are rare com- 
binations, but they are sometimes found in one man — they certainly 
were not in Colonel Burr. A great general, a great statesman, a 
great poet, a great astronomer, may be without morals ; and he is 
consequently not a great man. My young friend, a great man is the 
rarest creation of Al^jnighty God. Time has produced few. Wash- 
ington, perhaps, approaches the standard nearest, of modern men ; 
but he was selfish to some extent. 

"After Colonel Burr's return to New York, he was nominated by 
the Federal party for Governor of the State ; this was the first open 
announcement of his having deserted the Republican party. Hamil- 
ton threw all his influence against him, and he was defeated. This 
defeat sublimated his hatred for Hamilton. He made an excuse of 
17* 



198 THEMEMORIESOF 

certain words Hamilton had used in relation to him for challenging 
him. They met, and Hamilton fell. The death of Hamilton over- 
threw the little remaining popularity left to Burr. The nation, the 
world, turned upon him, and he became desperate. 

"Burr's term as Vice -l^resident terminated on the fourth of 
March, 1805. The odium which attached to his name found universal 
utterance after the duel. It was not simply the killing of Hamilton ; 
this merely gave occasion for the outburst of public indignation. 
His private character had always been bad. As a member of the 
Legislature, he had so conducted himself as to excite general sus- 
picion of his integrity. His desertion of the party elevating him to 
the Vice-Presidency, and lending himself to the opposition party to 
defeat the clearly expressed views of his own party, all combined to 
make him extremely odious to the populace. 

"In the canvass for the Presidency, he had been mainly instru- 
mental in carrying the State of New York for the Republican party. 
In this he had triumped over Hamilton ; but in the more recent con- 
test for Governor of the State, he found that the Republican party 
adhered to principle, and refused to be controlled by him, repudiat- 
ing his every advance ; and learned, also, that the Federal party would 
not unite in accepting him. Defeated on every side, in all his views, 
and mainly through the instrumentality of Hamilton, he determined, 
after killing his rival, if possible, to destroy the Government. 

"There was nothing unfair, or out of the ordinary method of 
conducting such affairs, in this duel. Hamilton's eldest son, but a 
little while before, had been slain, in a duel, on the very spot where 
his father fell, and the event created little or no excitement; and 
when Burr saw himself met with universal scorn, he knew it was the 
eruption of an accumulated hatred toward himself, and that all his 
ambition for future preferment and power was at an end. Imme- 
diately he left for the West, and commenced an abortive effort to 
break up the Union. # 

"The Allegheny Mountains opposed, at that time, an obstacle to 
free communication with the East. The States west were politically 
weak, and, supposing their interests were neglected by Congress, 
were restless and dissatisfied. This was especially true of Western 
Pennsylvania. There were very many young and ambitious men 
in all the Western States and Territories. Tennessee, Kentucky, 
and Ohio were rapidly populating from the Eastern and Middle 



FIFTY YEARS. I99 

States. Their commercial communication with the East was attended 
with so many difficulties as to force it almost entirely to New Orleans. 

"Geographically, it seemed that the valley of the Mississippi was, 
by nature, formed for one nation. The soil and climate promised 
to enterprise and industry untold wealth. The territorial dimen- 
sions were fabulous. The restless and oppressed multitudes of over- 
stocked Europe had already commenced an emigration to the United 
States, which promised to increase to such an amount as would soon 
fill up, to a great extent, this expanded and promising region. The 
Mississippi furnished an outlet to the ocean, and a navigation, unin- 
terrupted throughout the year, for thousands of miles, and New 
Orleans, a market for every surplus product. Burr saw all this, and 
determined to effect its separation from the Union, and there to 
establish a new empire, which should, ere long, control the destinies 
of the continent. It was the conception of genius and daring, but 
required an administrative ability which he had not, to consummate 
this conception. He miscalculated his material. The people of the 
West were vastly more intelligent than he had supposed them. 
They were not so simple as to receive his views, and blindly adopt 
and act upon them. They canvassed them, and concluded for them- 
selves. At Pittsburgh he found a number of adventurous young men 
(who had nothing to lose, and who were ripe for any enterprise 
which promised fame or fortune,) to unite with him. 

"He found Henry Clay in Kentucky, and Andrew Jackson in 
Tennessee, young, enterprising, and full of spirit and talent. He 
supposed them to be the men he sought, and approached both, 
cautiously revealing his views ; but, to his astonishment, the griev- 
ances of the West had not so warped their patriotism as to dispose 
them to engage in any schemes which threatened the dismember- 
ment of the Union. Clay listened and temporized, but never, for a 
moment, yielded assent. Jackson, more ardent, and a military man 
by nature, was carried away with the idea for a time. He was well 
acquainted with the people of the West, and especially with the popu' 
lation on the Lower Mississippi, and was the man who recommended 
Burr to make first a descent upon Mexico, as I have been confiden- 
tially informed, and sincerely believe. I have also been informed 
that he dissuaded Burr from any attempt to excite a war of the West 
with the East ; but first to make Mexico secure, which they and Wil- 
kinson believed would be an e;isy matter. It was when Burr, having 



200 THE MEMORIES OF 

abandoned his first enterprise, descended the Mississippi, that he 
was arrested. This arrest was made by the acting Governor of Mis- 
sissippi, and at some point in that Territory, where Jackson had a 
store or trading establishment. He was, with three of his aides, on 
his way to meet Wilkinson, for the purpose of arranging matters. 
He escaped, and finding things prepared for his interception, he 
made his way across the country ; but was finally arrested, on the 
Tombigbee, by an officer of the United States army. When on his 
trial at Richmond, Jackson went there, and was found on the street 
haranguing the people in Burr's favor, and denouncing the prosecu- 
tion "and the President. Subsequently, however, he denounced Burr, 
and pretended that he had deceived him. Humphrey Marshall, 
Pope, Grundy, and Whitesides united with Clay in condemning the 
entire scheme. There was a crazy Irishman, an adventurer, named 
Blannerhasset, residing on the Ohio, who at once entered into his 
views, embarked all his fortune in the enterprise, and, with Burr, was 
ruined. He was tried for treason, and acquitted. Soon after, he left 
the country, and remained away for many years, returning to find 
himself a stranger, and almost forgotten." 

Some months subsequent to this conversation, Colonel Burr came 
up from New York to visit his brother-in-law. Judge Reeve, and an 
opportunity was thus afforded me to see and converse with him ; 
but no allusion was made to the past of his own life, save an account 
of some suffering he underwent in the Canadian campaign, with 
General Montgomery. He had contracted, he said, a rheumatism 
in his ankle, during the winter he was in Canada, and that he had 
occasional attacks now, never having entirely recovered. He was 
not disposed to talk, and still he seemed pleased at the attentions 
received from the young gentlemen who visited him occasionally 
during his short stay. I do not remember ever having seen him on 
the street, or in the company of any one, except some of the young 
men who were reading with Judge Reeve. Some years after this, I 
met Colonel Burr in the city of New York, and spent an evening with 
him. At this time he alluded to his trip down the Mississippi, and 
made inquiry after several persons whom he had known. There 
were then living three men who, as his aides, had accompanied him 
upon his expedition. I knew the fact, and expected he would allude 
to them, but he did not. He seemed to desire to know more of 
those who had been active in procuring his arrest. 



FIFTY YEARS. 20I 

It was Cowles Mead (who was acting Governor of the Territory 
of Mississippi at the time) who arrested Burr at Bruensburgh, a small 
hamlet on the banks of the Mississippi, immediately below the 
mouth of the Bayou Pierre. "Mead," he said, "was a great 
admirer of Jefferson, because, I suppose, when he had been unseated 
by the contestant of his election, (a Mr. Spaulding,) Jefferson, to 
appease his wounded feelings, had appointed him secretary to the 
Mississippi Territory. He was a vain man of very small mind, and 
full of the importance of his official station." I remarked that he 
was a brother-in-law of mine. "I was not aware of that, but I am 
sure you are too well acquainted with the truth of the statement 
to be offended at my stating it." I remarked: "Colonel, I am 
thoroughly acquainted with General Mead, and equally as well 
acquainted with all the circumstances connected with your acquaint- 
ance with him. The adventure of Bruensburgh has been, through 
life, a favorite theme with the General, and I doubt if there is living 
a man who ever knew the General a month, who has not heard the 
story repeated a dozen times." He dryly remarked: "I should 
have supposed the episode to that affair would have restrained him 
from its narration;" and the conversation ceased. 

I shall have much more to say of these two in a future chapter. 
At this time Colonel Burr was old and slightly bent, very unlike 
what he was when I first met him ; still his eyes and nose, brow and 
mouth, wore the same expression they did fifteen years before. 
About the mouth and eye there was a sinister expression, and he had 
a habit of looking furtively out of the corner of his eye at you, when 
you did not suppose he was giving any attention to you. 



202 THE MEMORIES OF 

CHAPTER XV. 

CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT. 

Governor Wolcott — Toleration — Mr. Monroe — Private Life of Wash- 
ington — Thomas Jefferson — The Object and Science of Government — 
Court Etiquette — Nature the Teacher and Guide in all Things. 

DURING the year 1820 I was frequently a visitor at the house 
of Governor Oliver Wolcott, who then resided in Litchfield, 
Connecticut. Governor Wolcott was a remarkable man in many 
respects. He was originally a Federalist in politics, and enjoyed 
the confidence of that party to an unlimited extent. His abilities 
were far above ordinary, and his family one of great respectability. 
He was a native of Connecticut, and after Alexander Hamilton 
retired from the Treasury bureau in the Cabinet of Washington, he 
succeeded to that position. He filled the office with credit to himself, 
and to the satisfaction of his chief. He had, after considerable time 
spent in public life, left Connecticut, to reside in New York. Sub- 
sequent to the war, and when the Federal party had abandoned its 
organization under the Administration of Mr. Monroe, there grew 
up in his native State a party called the Toleration party. In reality 
it was a party proscriptive of the old Federal leaders, and it grew 
out of some legislation in connection with religious matters, in which, 
as usual, the Puritan element had attempted to oppress, by special 
taxation, for their own benefit, all others differing from them in reli- 
gious creed. Governor Wolcott favored this new organization, and 
he was invited to return to the State and give his aid to its success. 
He did so, and in due time was made Governor by this party. At 
the time of which I write, he was as bitterly and sincerely hated by 
the old Federal party as ever Jefferson was, or as Andy Johnson 
now is by the Radical party, which is largely constituted of the debris 
of that old and intolerant organization, and which is now eliminating 
every principle of the Constitution to gratify that thirst for power, 
and to use it for persecution, that seems inherent in the nature of the 
Puritan. By the hour I have listened to the abuse of him, from the 
mouths of men whose lives had been spent in his praise and support, 
simply because he had interposed his talents and influence to arrest 



FIFTY YEARS. 203 

the oppressor's hand. They said he had deserted his party, that 
he would live to share the fate of Burr, and that he was as great a 
traitor. 

The bitterness and injustice of party is proverbial, and its want of 
reason is astonishing. Men who are cool and considerate on all 
other subjects, are frequently the most violent and unreasonable as 
partisans. It seems akin to religious fanaticism, and proscribes with 
the same bigotry all who will not, or conscientiously cannot, act or 
think with them. It prescribes opinions, and they must be obeyed 
by all who belong to the organization, and without reservation or 
qualification. Its exactions are as fierce and indisputable as the 
laws and regulations of the Jesuits. These are changed with party 
necessities, and not unfrequently are diametrically antagonistic to the 
former creed ; yet you must follow and sustain them, or else you are a 
traitor, and denounced and driven from the party, and often from 
intercourse socially with those who have been your neighbors and 
friends from boyhood. In this method party compels dishonesty in 
politics, and is eminently demoralizing, for it is impossible to famil- 
iarize the conscience with political dishonesty without tainting the 
moral man in ordinary matters pertaining to life. Once break down 
the barrier which separates the right from the wrong, that success 
may come of it, and every principle of restraint to immoral or dis- 
honest conduct is swept away. For this reason men of stern integ- 
rity never make good politicians. They are very often the reliable 
statesmen, never the reliable politicians. 

Governor Wolcott had through his life sustained an unimpeached 
reputation. He had filled to the full his political ambition. Again 
and again he had been honored by his people who had grown up 
with him. He had been honored by the confidence of Washington, 
and the nation. He was wealthy, was old, and only aspired to do, 
and to see done, justice to the whole people of his native State. In 
doing this he came in conflict with the unjust views and iniquitous 
conduct of an old, crushed party, and he was denounced as a traitor, 
and ostracized because he would be just. 

This was the disruption forever of the Federal party in Connecti- 
cut; for though it had ceased to exist as a national organization, it 
still was sufficiently intact to control most of the New England 
States. Mr. Monroe's Administration had been so popular that in 
his second election he received every vote of every State in the 



204 THE MEMORIES OF 

Union, save New Hampshire: one man in her electoral college, who 
was appointed to vote for him, refused to do so, and gave as his 
reason that he was a slave-owner. New interests had supervened, 
old issues were dead — they had had their day — their mission was 
accomplished; old men were passing away, the nation was expanding 
into great proportions, and men of great talents were growing with and 
for the occasion ; old party animosities were dimming out, and the era 
of good feelings seemed to pervade the national heart. Even John 
Adams and Thomas Jefferson were amicably corresponding and 
growing affectionate at eighty. It was but the lull which precedes 
the storm — the sultry quiet which augurs the earthquake. 

Upon one occasion I ventured to ask Governor Wolcott to tell me 
something of Washington. We were strolling in his garden, where 
he had invited me to look at some melons he was attempting to grow- 
under glass. He stopped, and turning round, looked me full in the 
face, and asked me if I had not read the "Life of Washington." 

" Not the private life," was the reply. 

"Ah! a very laudable curiosity in one so young. I knew him 
well, and can only say his private was very much like his public life. 
I do not suppose there ever lived a man more natural in his deport- 
ment than Washington. He did nothing for effect. He was more 
nearly the same man on the street that he was in his night-gown 
and slippers, than any man I ever knew; I can't say I was intimate 
with Washington ; no man can or ever could have said that. His 
dignity was austere and natural. It was grand, and awed and 
inspired a respect from every one alike. You breathed low in his 
presence — you felt uneasy in your seat, before him. There was an 
inspiring something about him, that made you feel it was a duty to 
stand in his presence, uncovered, and respectfully silent. I have 
heard this sternness attributed to his habit of command ; not so — it 
was natural, and he was unconscious of it. Most men, however 
stern, will unbend to woman. There is in woman's presence a 
divinity which thaws the rigor of the heart and warms the soul, which 
manifests itself in the softening of the eye, in the glow upon the 
cheek, and the relaxation of manner. It was not so with Washing- 
ton. In his reception-rooms he was easily polite and courteously 
affable ; but his dignity and the inflexibility of his features never 
relaxed. 

" I remember to have heard Mrs. Adams say 'she did not think 



FIFTY YEARS. 



205 



he was ever more than polite to Mrs. Washington.' With all this he 
was very kind, and if he ever did let himself down it was to children, 
and these never seemed to feel his austerity, or to shrink away from 
it. It is said that it is the gift of childhood to see the heart in the 
eye and the face. It is certain they never approach an ill-natured 
or bad man, and never shrink from a kind and good one. In his 
intercourse with his Cabinet, he was respectful to difference — con- 
sulted each without reserve or concealment, and always weighed well 
their opinions, and never failed to render to them his reasons for 
differing with them'. He was very concise and exact in stating a 
case, and never failed to understand well every question before 
acting. He had system and order in everything. In his private 
atTairs, in his household, as well as in his public conduct, he observed 
strict rules, and exacted their obedience from all about him. In 
nothing was he demonstrative or impulsive ; but always considerate 
and cool. 

" 1 know nothing of his domestic matters. There were malicious 
persons who started many reports of discord between Washington 
and his lady. These I believe were all false. Mrs. Washington 
was a high-bred woman, a lady in everything ; and so far as my 
observation or acquaintance extended, was devoted and dutiful. Of 
one thing I am very sure : she was a proud woman, and was proud 
of her husband. She certainly had not the dignity of her husband; 
no one, male or female, ever had. She was less reserved, more 
accessible, and not indifferent to the attentions and flatteries of her 
husband's friends. In fine, she was a woman. Washington's" deport- 
ment toward his wife was kind and respectful, but always dignified 
and courteous. Toward his servants he was uniformly kind. 

"He was an enemy to slavery, and never hesitated to avow his 
sentiments. His black servants were very much attached to him. 
The peculiar nature of Washington forbade those heart-friendships 
demanded by a narrower and more impulsive nature. He kept all 
the world too far from him ever to win that tenderness of affection 
which sweetens social life in the blending of hearts and sympathy 
of souls. But he commanded that esteem which results from respect 
and appreciation of the great and commanding attributes of his 
nature, which elevated him so far above the men of his age. He 
wanted the softness and yielding of the heart that so wins upon the 
affections of associates and those who are in close and constant 
18 



2o6 THE MEMORIES OF 

intercommunication. Are not these incompatible with the stern 
and towering traits essential to such a character as was Washington's? 
Like a shaft of polished granite towering amid shrubs and flowers, 
cold and hard, but grand and beautiful, he stood among the men and 
the women who surrounded him when President. 

" General Washington was cautious and reserved in his expressions 
about men. He rarely praised or censured. At the time I was in 
the Cabinet, he had abundant cause for dislike to Mr. Jefferson, who, 
in his Maze'i letter, had represented him as laboring to break up the 
Government, that upon its ruins a monarchy might arise for his own 
benefit. He spoke of this letter more severely than I had ever 
heard him speak of anything, and said no man better knew the 
charge false, than Mr. Jefferson. Some correspondence, I believe, 
took place between them on the subject. I believe they never met 
after this. Upon one occasion I heard him say that it was unfor- 
tunate that Jefferson had been sent to France at the time that he was, 
when morals and governm'^nt alike were little less than chaos, for 
he had been tainted in his ideas of both." 

"You knew Mr. Jefferson? " I asked. 

" Come into the house, and I will show you something," said the 
venerable man, then tottering to the grave. I went, and he showed 
me some letters addressed to him by persons in Virginia, presenting, 
in no very enviable light, the character of Jefferson. When I had 
read them, he remarked : " You must not suppose I am anxious to 
prejudice your youthful mind against the great favorite of your 
people. It is not so. You seem solicitous to learn something of the 
men who have had so much agency in the establishment of the Gov- 
ernment and the formation of the opinions of the people, that I am 
willing you should see upon what my opinions have, in a great 
degree, been formed. Mr. Jefferson is still living, and still writing. 
His pen seems to have lost none of its vigor, nor his heart any of its 
venom. You will hear him greatly praised, and greatly abused. I 
knew him at one time, but never intimately, and may be said only 
to know him as a public man ; what of his private character I 
know, comes from the statements of others, and general report. You 
have just seen some of these statements. I knew the writers of these 
letters well, and know their statements to be entitled to credit, and 
I believe them. They assure me that Mr. Jefferson is without moral 
principle. His public conduct must convince every one of his want 



FIFTY YEARS, 20y 

of political principle. His whole life has been a bundle of contra- 
dictions. He has had neither chart nor compass by which to regu- 
late his course, but has universally adopted the expedient. 

" That he has a great and most vigorous intellect is beyond all 
question ; but most of its emanations have been the ad captandu7n to 
seize the current, and sail with it. He saw the democratic proclivity 
of the people, he concentrated it by the use of his pen, and he has 
aided its expansion, until it threatens ruin to the Government. He 
knows it, and he still perseveres. Under the plea of inviting popu- 
lation, he advocated the extension of the franchise to aliens, and was 
really the parent from whose brain was born the naturalization laws, 
making citizens of every nationality, and giving them all the powers 
of the Government, extending suffrage to every pauper in the land, 
increasing to the utmost the material for the demagogue, and thus 
depriving the intelligence of the country of the power to control it. 
The specious argument that if a man is compelled to serve in the 
militia and defend the country, he should be entitled to vote, was 
his. Its sophistry is as palpable to Jefferson as to every thinking 
mind. Government is the most abstruse of the sciences, and should, 
for the security of all, be controlled by the intelligence of the 
country. During the world's existence, all the intelligence it has 
ever afforded, has not been competent to the formation of a govern- 
ment approximating perfection. 

"The object of government is the protection of life, liberty, and 
property. The tenure of property is established and sustained by 
law ; it is the basis of government ; it is the support of government ; 
in proportion to its extent and security, it is the strength and power 
of government, and those who possess it should have the control of 
government. In a republic, there can be no better standard of intel- 
ligence than the possession of property, and to give the greatest 
security to the government, none should, in a republic, be intrusted 
with the ballot, but the native, and the property-holder, or the native 
property-holder. The complications of our system are scarcely under- 
stood by our own people, and to suppose that ignorant men (for 
such constitute the bulk of our emigrant population) shall become so 
intimate with it, and so much attached to it, as to constitute them, in 
a few years, persons to be intnisted with its control, is supposing 
human intelligence to be of much higher grasp than I have ever 
foun<J it. Most of these emigrants come here with preconceived 



208 THE MEMORIES OF 

prejudices toward the institutions of their native lands. This is 
natural. Most of them speak a foreign language. This has to be 
overcome, before they can even commence to learn the nature and 
operation of our system, which is so radically dissimilar to any and 
all others. These men, as the ignorant of our own people, naturally 
lean on some one who shall direct them, and they will blindly do 
his bidding. This is an invitation to the demagogue ; these are his 
materials, and he will aggregate and control them. Such men are 
always poor, and envy makes them the enemies of the rich. This 
creates an antagonism, which we see existing in every country. 

" The poor are dependent for employment upon the rich ; the rich 
are dependent upon the poor for labor. This mutual dependence, it 
would be supposed, would tend to create mutual regard ; but expe- 
rience teaches the reverse. The poor have nothing to sell but their 
labor, and there are none to buy but the rich. Each, naturally, 
struggles to make the best bargain possible, and take advantage of 
every circumstance to effect this. Very few are satisfied with fair 
equivalents, and one or the other always feels aggrieved. Here is 
the difiFxulty. Well, endow the laborer with the ballot, and he usurps 
the government ; for to vote is to govern. What is to be the conse- 
quence? We now have, with all the means of expansion and facili- 
ties a new country of boundless extent gives to the poor for findmg 
and making homes, many more without property than with it. This 
disproportion will go on to increase until it assimilates to every old 
country, with a few rich and many poor. These many will control ; 
they will send of their own men to legislate ; they will favor their 
friends ; they will levy the taxes, which the property-holders of the 
country must pay ; they will make the laws appropriating these 
taxes ; all will be for the benefit of their constituency, and the prop- 
erty, the government, and the people are all at their mercy. Jef- 
ferson sees this, and is taking advantage of it, and has indoctrinated 
the whole unthinking portion of our people with these destructive- 
notions. It made him President. His example has proven conta- 
gious, and I see no end to its results short of the destruction of the 
Government, and that speedily. Mr. Jefferson's fame will be co-exist- 
ent with the Government. When that shall perish, his great errors 
will be apparent. The impartial historian, inquiring into the cause 
of this destruction, with half an eye will see it, and then his true 
character will be sketched, and this great, unprincipled demagogue 



FIFTY YEARS. 2O9 

will go naked down to posterity. He has always been unprincipled, 
immoral, and dissolute. These, accompanying his great intellect, 
have made it a curse, rather than a blessing, to his kind. 

"The world has produced few great statesmen — Washington and 
Hamilton were the only ones of any pretensions this country has 
produced. It was a great misfortune that Hamilton did not succeed 
Washington. Mr. Adams, now lingering to his end at Braintree, was 
a patriot, but greatly wanting in the attributes of greatness. He was 
suspicious, ill-tempered, and full of unmanly prejudices — was inca- 
pable of comprehending the great necessities of his country, as well 
as the means to direct and control these necessities. He had ani- 
mosities to nurse, and enemies to punish — was more concerned 
about a proper respect for himself and the office he filled, than the 
interest and the destiny of his country. He quarrelled with Wash- 
ington, was jealous of him, who never had a thought but for his 
country. Adams was all selfishness, little selfishness, and earned and 
got the contempt of the whole nation. Jefferson was turning all this 
to his own advantage ; and the errors and follies of Adams were 
made the strength and wisdom of Jefferson. He had but one rival 
before the nation, Burr — he whom you saw yesterday, the crushed 
victim of the cunning and intrigue of his friend Jefferson. 

" Washington had died — despondent of the future of his country. 
The prestige of his name and presence was gone. He had com- 
mitted a great error in bringing Jefferson into his Cabinet and before 
the nation with his approbation. He knew every Cabinet secret, and 
took advantage of every one, and had placed himself prominently 
before the people, and with Burr was elected. The defect in the law 
as existing at the time, enabled Burr, when returned with an equal 
number of electoral votes, to contend with Jefferson for the Presi- 
dency. It was in the power of Hamilton, at this time, to elect. The 
States were divided, six for Burr, eight for Jefferson, and two divided. 
There was one State voting for Jefferson, which by the change of 
one vote would have been given to Burr : the divided States were 
under his control. He was, during the ballotings, sent for, with a view 
to the election of Burr; but he preferred Jefferson — thought him less 
dangerous than Burr, and procured his election. It was a terrible 
alternative, to have to choose between two such men. The conse- 
quences to Burr and the country have been terrible — the destruction 
of both. 

18* O 



2IO THE MEMORIES OF 

"1 suppose much I have said cuts across your prejudice, coming 
from the South. I have sought to speak sincerely to you, because you 
are young, impressible, and anxious for knowledge ; and it is better 
to know an unwelcome truth, than to find out by-and-by you have 
all your life been believing an untruth. Nothing is more sickening 
to the candid and sincere heart, than to learn its cherished opinions 
and dearest hopes have been nothing but fallacies; and when you are 
old as I am, you will have been more fortunate than I have been, if 
you do not find much that you have loved most, and most trusted, a 
deceit — a miserable lie. Come and see me at your leisure: I shall 
always be glad to see you, and equally as glad to answer any of your 
questions, if these answers will give you information." 

Governor Oliver Wolcott was short in stature and inclined to corpu- 
lency ; his head was large and round, with an ample forehead ; his eyes 
were gray and very pleasant in their expression ; his mouth was volup- 
tuous, and upon his lips there usually lurked a smile, humorous in its 
threatening, provoking a pleasing dimple upon his cheek. In society, 
in his extreme old age, for I only knew him then, he was less gay 
than the general expression of his features would have indicated. He 
was a man of strong will and most decided character. His indi- 
viduality was marked and striking, and his tenacity of purpose made 
his character one of remarkable consistency. 

Governor Wolcott was one of the old -school Federalists, a 
thorough believer in Federal principles. He believed in the 
capacity of the people for self-government, if the franchise of suf- 
frage was confined to the intelligence and freeholds of the country, 
but reprobated the idea of universal suffrage as destructive of all that 
was good in republican institutions. Succeeding Alexander Hamil- 
ton as Secretary of the Treasury, he found all matters of finance 
connected with the Government in so healthy a condition and 
arranged upon such a basis as only required that he should be care- 
ful to keep them there. During the four last years of the Adminis- 
tration of Washington, this prevented any display on his part of any 
striking financial ability. The administration of his office was 
entirely satisfactory to the country, though it seemed he was only 
there to superintend the workings of the genius of Hamilton. Once 
in my hearing he remarked, he had only to work up to the scribings 
of Hamilton to make everything joint up and fit well. 

He held Washington in higher esteem even than Colonel Talmage; 



FIFTYYEARS. 211 

and differed from him in many particulars relative to his character. 
It was my good fortune to sit and listen, more than once, to discus- 
sions between these venerable men. It was always amicable and 
eminently instructive. Wolcott was an admirer of Mrs. Washington, 
Talmage was not. Talmage was a military man, and saw a healthy 
discipline only in obedience to superiors, and exacted in his own 
family what he deemed was proper in that of every man. Accus- 
tomed himself to a strict obedience to the commands of his superiors, 
and deeming Washington almost incapable of error, he thought 
hardly even of Mrs. Washington when she manifested a disposition 
the slightest to independence of her husband. Wolcott did not see 
her in the camp, but only as the wife of the President of the United 
States — mistress of the Presidential mansion, and affably dispensing 
the duties of hostess there — receiving, entertaining, and socially 
intermingling in the society admitted to the Presidential circle. 

At that period there was more of ceremony and display in the 
higher circles of official society than at this time. The people had 
seceded from a monarchical government, and established a demo- 
cratic one ; but the prestige of titular and aristocratic society still 
lingered with those high in office, of distinguished position, and 
wealth. Many of those most prominent about the Government had 
spent much time in Europe, and had imported European manners 
and customs, and desired to see the court etiquette of the mother 
country prevail at the court of the new Government, Time and the 
institutions of democracy had not effected that change in the prac- 
tices of the people, which the Revolution and the determination to 
control and direct their own government had in their sentiments. 

Mr. Jefferson affected to despise this formal ceremony, and the dis- 
tinctions in society encouraged by monarchical institutions, and sus- 
tained by authority of law — though coming from a State and from 
the midst of a people whose leading and wealthiest families had 
descended directly from the nobility and gentry of England, and 
who affected an aristocracy of social life extremely exclusive in its 
character, while professing a democracy in political organization of 
the broadest and most comprehensive type. His sagacity taught him 
that the institutions of a democratic government would soon pro- 
duce that social equality which was their spirit, in the ordinary inter- 
course of the people — that he who enjoyed all and every privilege, 
politically and legally, given under its Constitution and laws, pos- 



212 THE MEMORIES OF 

sessed a power which ultimately would force his social equality with 
the most pretentious in the land. In truth, the government was in 
his hands, and he would mould it to his views, and society to his 
status. 

The institutions of government everywhere form the social organ- 
ization of society. Men are ambitious of distinction in every gov- 
ernment, and aspire to control in directing the destinies of their 
country — are justly proud of the respect and confidence of their fel- 
low-men, and will court it in the manner most likely to secure it. 
Now and then, there are to be found some who are insensible to any 
fame save that given by wealth — who will wrap themselves up in a 
pecuniary importance, with an ostentatious display of their wealth, 
and an exclusiveness of social intercourse, and are contented with this, 
and the general contempt. Such men, and such social coteries, are 
few in this country. Fortunately, wealth which is only used as a 
means of ostentatious display is worthless to communities, and its 
possessor is contemptible. "Wealth is power" is ah adage, and is 
true where it is used to promote the general good. Without it no 
people can be prosperous or intelligent, and the prosperity and intel- 
ligence of every people is greatest where there is most wealth, and 
where it is most generally diffused. This is best effected by demo- 
cratic institutions, where every preferment is open to all, and where 
the division of estates follows every death. No large and overshad- 
owing estates, creating a moneyed aristocracy, can accumulate, to 
control the legislation and the people's destinies under such institu- 
tions. No privileged class can be sustained under their operation ; 
for such a class must always be sustained by wealth hereditary and 
entailed, protected from the obligations of debt, and prohibited from 
division or alienation. 

Mr. Jefferson had studied the effects of governments upon their 
people most thoroughly, and understood their operation upon the 
social relations of society, and the character and minds of the people. 
He was wont to say there was no hereditary transmission of mind ; 
that this was democratic, and a Caesar, a Solon, or a Demosthenes 
was as likely to come from a cottage and penury as from a palace 
and wealth ; that virtue more frequently wore a smock-frock than a 
laced coat, and that the institutions of every government should be 
so modelled as to afford opportunity to these to become what nature 
designed they should be — models of worth and usefulness to the 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 2 1 ^ 

country. Every one owes to society obligations, and the means 
should be afforded to all to make available these obligations for the 
public good. Nature never designed that man should hedge about 
with law a favored few, until these should establish a natural claim 
to such protection, by producing all the intellect and virtue of the 
commonwealth. This was common property, and wherever found, 
in all the gradations and ranges of society, should, under the opera- 
tions of law, be afforded the same opportunities as the most favored 
by fortune. "In all things nature should be teacher ana guide." 

These doctrines are beautiful in theory, and are well calculated to 
fasten upon the minds of the many. They have been, time and 
again, incorporated into the constitution of governments, and have 
uniformly produced the same disastrous results. They are equally 
as fallacious as the declaration "that all men are born free and 
equal," which, with those above, has won the public approbation in 
spite of experience. The equality of intellect is as certainly untrue 
as the equality of stature ; the one is not more apparent than the 
other. Transcendent intellect is as rare as an eclipse of the sun. It 
manifests itself in the control of all others — in forming the opinions 
and shaping the destinies of all others. This is a birthright — is 
never acquired, admits of great cultivation, receives impressions, gen- 
erates ideas, and makes wonderful efforts. Cultivation and education 
gives it these, but never its vigor and power. In whatever grade or 
caste of society this is born, it soon works its way to the top, disrupts 
every band which ties it down, and naturally rises above the lower 
strata, as the rarefied atmosphere rises above the denser. This 
higher order of intellect will naturally control, and as naturally pro- 
tect its power. From such, a better government may always be 
expected ; and without this control, none can be wholissome or 
permanent. 



214 THE MEMORIES OF 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PARTY PRINCIPLES. 

Origin of Parties — Federal and Republican Peculiarities — Jefferson's 
Principles and Religion — Democracy — Virginia and MASSACHUsfeTTS 
Parties — War with France — Sedition Law — Lyman Beecher — The 
Almighty Dollar — " Hail Columbia" and " Yankee Doodle." 

THE Federal and Republican parties of the nation had their rise 
and formation out of the two principles of government — the 
one descending, as by inheritance, from the mother-country, and the 
other growing out of the formation of the governments established 
in the early organization of the colonies. A republican form of 
government was natural to the people. It had become so from 
habit. They had, in each colony, enjoyed a representative form ; 
had made their own laws, and, with the exception of their Governors 
and judicial officers, had chosen, by ballot, all their legislative and 
ministerial officers. Most of the principles and practices of a demo- 
cratic form of government, consequently, were familiar to them. 
The etiquette of form and ceremony preserved by the Governors, 
conformed to English usage. This was only familiar to those of the 
masses whose business brought them in contact with these ministerial 
officers and their appendages. 

These were continued, to some extent, for a time ; but Jefferson 
saw that they must soon cease, and yield to a sensible, simple inter- 
course between the officials of the Government and the people. This 
was foreshadowed in the Declaration of Independence, drafted by 
him. Immediately upon the success of the Revolution, and the 
organization of the General Government, he enunciated the opinions 
and principles now known as Jeffersonian or democratic. It has 
been charged upon him, that he borrowed his principles from the 
leaders of the French Revolution, as he did his religion from Vol- 
taire and Tom Paine. 

Jefferson was an original thinker, and thought boldly on all sub- 
jects. He had studied not only the character and history of gov- 
ernments, but of religions, and from the convictions of his own judg- 
ment were formed his opinions and his principles. His orthodoxy 



FIFTYYEARS. • 21$ 

was his doxy, and he cared very little for the doxy of any other 
man or set of men. His genius and exalted talents gave him a light 
which shines in upon few brains, and if his religious opinions were 
fallacious, there are few of our day who will say that his social and 
political sentiments were or are wrong. As to his correctness in the 
former, it is not, nor will it ever be, given to man to demonstrate. 
This is the only subject about which there is no charity for him who 
differs from the received dogmas of the Church, and to-day his name 
is an abomination only to the Federalists and the Church. 

Jefferson was made Secretary of State by General Washington, 
and was at once the head and representative man of the democracy 
of the country. There was, however, no organized opposition to 
the Administration of Washington. But immediately upon the 
election of Adams it begun to take shape and form, under the 
leadership of Jefferson. The two parties were first known as the 
Virginia and Massachusetts parties. Jefferson had been elected 
Vice-President with Adams, and before the termination of the first 
year of the Administration the opposition was formidable in Con- 
gress. Governor Wolcott was of opinion that Adams destroyed the 
Federal party by the unwise policy of his Administration. He said 
he was a man of great intellect, but of capricious temper, incapable 
from principle or habit of yielding to the popular will. He cer- 
tainly saw the palpable tendency of public feeling, and must have 
known its strength : instead of attempting to go with it, and shape 
it to the exigencies his party required, he vainly attempted to stem 
the current, defy it, and control it by law. He disregarded the 
earnest entreaties of his best friends, counselling only with the 
extremists of the Federal party : the result was the Alien and Sedition 
Laws. Pickering warned him, and he quarrelled with him. He 
would not conciliate, but punish his political foes. He loved to 
exercise power; he did it unscrupulously, and became exceedingly 
offensive to many of his own party, and bitterly hated by his polit- 
ical enemies. The Alien and Sedition Laws emanated from the 
extremists of the Federal party, and were in opposition to the views 
of Adams himself — yet he approved them, and determined to exe- 
cute them. He knew these laws were in direct opposition to the 
views and feelings of an immense majority of the people ; and with 
these lights before him, and when he had it in his power to have 
conciliated the masses, he defied them. 



2l6 THE MEMORIES OF 

Mr. Adams was unaccustomed to seek or court public favor ; his 
associations had never been with the masses, and he understood very 
little of their feelings; when these were forced upon him, he received 
their manifestations with contempt, and uniformly disregarded their 
teachings. All these defects of character were seized upon by the 
opposition, to render odious the Federal party. 

Mr. Jefferson placed himself in active opposition, and was known 
at an early day as the candidate of the opposition to succeed Adams. 
Our difficulties with France, and the action of Congress in appoint- 
ing Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces, brought 
Washington into contact with Adams on several occasions ; and 
especially when Washington made his acceptance of the office con- 
ditional upon the appointment of Hamilton as second in command, 
Adams thought he had not been respectfully treated, either by Con- 
gress or Washington ; and there were some pretty sharp letters 
written by Washington in relation to the course of Adams. 

Jefferson was opposed to the French war. The aid afforded by 
France in our Revolution had made grateful the public heart, and 
the people were indisposed to rush into a war with her for slight 
cause. The pen of Jefferson was never idle : he knew the general 
feeling, and inflamed it, and what the consequences to the country 
might have been, had not the war come to an abrupt and speedy 
end, there are no means of knowing. The trial and conviction of 
Lyon and Cooper under the Sedition Law, aroused a burst of indig- 
nation from the people. Still it taught no wisdom to Mr. Adams, 
He was urged to have their prosecutions abandoned, but he refused. 
After conviction, he was seriously pressed to pardon these men, in 
obedience to the popular will, but he persistently refused, and Lyon 
was continued in prison until liberated by the success of the Repub- 
lican party, and the repeal of the offensive and impolitic laws soon 
after. 

Adams professed great veneration for the character of Washington, 
and he was doubtless sincere. Yet he never lost sight of the fact that 
it was he who had seconded the motion when made in Congress by 
Samuel Adams to appoint Washington commander-in-chief of the 
armies of the Revolution, or that it was he who suggested it to 
Samuel Adams, and that he sustained the motion in a speech of 
burning eloquence. He felt that this conferred an obligation and 
that Washington was at times unmindful of this. He was more 



FIFTVYEARS. 217 

exacting than generous, and more suspicious than confiding. In 
truth, Adams had more mind than soul; more ambition than patriot- 
ism, and more impulse than discretion. Yet the country owes him 
much. He was a great support in the cause of the Revolution, and 
his folly was to charge too high for his services. The people honored 
him — they have honored his family, and will yet make his son 
President. He received all they could give, and his littleness crept 
out in his desire for more. 

General Washington's estimate of men was generally correct. 
He understood Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr. I do not 
think he was personally attached to any one of them ; yet he appre- 
ciated them as the public now do. He had need of the talents of 
Hamilton and Jefferson. The organization of the Government 
required the first minds of the country ; and Washington was the 
man to call them to his side. In nothing did he show more great- 
ness than in this. He knew Jefferson was without principle, but he 
knew that he was eminently talented ; he could forget the one, and 
call to his aid the other. His confidence in the integrity of Hamil- 
ton was stronger, as well as in his ability. Upon all matters of 
deep concern to the country he consulted both, and these consulta- 
tations often brought these two men into antagonistical positions 
before him, and upon important public matters — one of which was 
the constitutionality of a United States Bank. To each of these, 
when the charter of the bank was before him, he addressed a note 
requesting their opinions upon its constitutionality. Jefferson 
replied promptly in a short, written opinion, not well considered or 
ably argued, as was his wont ; denying the constitutionality of such 
an institution. This opinion was handed to Hamilton, who pleaded 
public duties as the cause of delay on his part, for not furnishing an 
opinion. It came at last, and was able and conclusive, as to its con- 
stitutionality. But it was terrible in its slashing and exposure of the 
dogmatical sophisms of Jefferson. From that time forward there 
were bitter feelings between these two eminent men, 

Intellectuallyj Hamilton had no equal in his day. It is ridiculous 
to compare him with Burr, which is often done by persons who ^ 

should know better, because they have all the evidence up»a. which r" 
to predicate a conclusion. The occasion was open to both, equally, 
to discover to the world what abilities they possessed. They equally 
filled eminent positions before the nation, and at a time when she 



2l8 THE MEMORIES OF 

demanded the use of the first abilities in the land. What each per- 
formed is before the world. 

Men having talent will always leave behind some evidence of this, 
whether they pass through life in a public or private capacity. Flip- 
pant pertness, with some wit, is too often mistaken for talent — and 
a still tongue with a sage look, will sometimes pass for wisdom. But 
wherever there is talent or wisdom, it makes its mark. 

The evidences of Hamilton's abilities are manifested in his works. 
They show a versatility of talent unequalled by any modern man. 
He was conspicuous for his great genius before he was fifteen years 
of age ; he was chief-of-staff for General Washington before he was 
twenty, and before he was thirty, was admitted to be the first mind 
of the country. As a military man, ^very officer of the army of the 
Revolution considered him the very first ; as a lawyer, he had no 
equal of his day ; as a statesman, he ranked above all competition ; 
as a financier, none were his equal, and an abundance of evidence 
has been left by him to sustain this reputation in every particular. 

What has Burr left ? Nothing. He still lives, and what his pos- 
thumous papers may say for him, I cannot say; but I know him well, 
and consequently expect nothing. As a lawyer, he was mediocre ; 
as a statesman, vacillating and without any fixed principles ; as an 
orator, (for some had claimed him to be such,) he was turgid and 
verbose — sometimes he was sarcastic, but only when the malignity 
of his nature found vent in the bitterness of words. His private 
conduct has, in every situation, been bad. He was one of the Lee 
and Gates faction to displace Washington from the command of the 
army. He decried the abilities of Washington. He violated the 
confidence of General Putnam, when his aide, in seducing Margaret 
Moncrief, (whose father had intrusted her to Putnam's care.) He 
violated his faith to the Republican party, in lending himself to the 
Federal party to defeat the known and expressed will of the people, 
and the Republican party, by contesting the election before Con- 
gress of Mr. Jefferson. In the Legislature of New York, his conduct 
was such as to draw on him the suspicion of coniiption, and universal 
condemnation. Contrast his public services with his public and 
private vices, and see what he is — the despised of the whole world, 
eking out a miserable existence in hermitical seclusion with a 
woman of ill-fame. 

There resided as minister of the Congregational Church, at that 



FIFTYYEARS. 2I9 

time, in Litchfield, Lyman Beecher. He was a man of short stature; 
remarkable dark complexion, with large and finely formed head ; 
his features were strong and irregular, with stern, ascetic expression. 
He was naturally a man of great mind, and but for the bigoted char- 
acter of his religion, narrowing his mind to certain contemptible 
prejudices and opinions, might have been a great man. Reared in 
the practice of Puritan opinions, and associated from childhood 
with that strait-laced and intolerant sect, his energies, (which were 
indomitable) and mind, more so perverted as to become mischievous, 
instead of useful. He was a propagandist in the broadest sense of 
the term — would have made an admirable inquisitor — was without 
any of the charities of the Christian ; despised as heretical the creed 
of every sect save his own, and had all of the intolerant bitter- 
ness and degrading superstitions of the Puritans, and persecutors 
of Laud, in the Long Parliament. In truth, he was an immediate 
descendant of the Puritans of the seventeenth century, and was dis- 
tinguished for the persecuting and intolerant spirit of that people. He 
seemed ever casting about for something in the principles or conduct 
of others to abuse, and delighted to exhaust his genius in pouring out 
his venom upon those who did not square their conduct and opinions 
by his rule. At this time, 1820, the admission of Missouri into the 
Union gave rise to the agitation of the extension of slavery. This 
was a sweet morsel under and on his tongue. He at once com- 
menced the indulgence of his persecuting spirit, in the abuse of 
slavery, and slave owners. His own immediate people had com- 
mitted no sin in the importation of the African, and the money 
accumulated in the traffic was not blood-money. The institution 
had been wiped out in New England, not by enfranchisement, but 
by sale to the people of the South, when no longer useful or valuable 
at home ; and all the sin of slavery had followed the slave, to barbarize 
and degrade the people of the South. The fertility of his imagination 
could suggest a thousand evils growing from slavery, which concen- 
trating in the character of those possessing them, made them demons 
upon earth, and fit heritors of hell, deserving the wrath of God and 
man. 

It was palpable to the scrutinizing observer, that it was not the sin 
of slavery which actuated the zeal of Beecher. The South had held 
control of the Government almost from its inception. The North- 
ern, or Federal party, had been repudiated for the talents and energy 



2 20 THE MEMORIES OF 

of the South. Its principles and their professors were odious — the 
conduct of its leading representatives, during the late war, had tainted 
New England, and she was offensive to the nostrils of patriotism 
everywhere. Her people were restless and dissatisfied under the dis- 
grace. They were anxious for power, not to control for the public 
good the destinies of the country ; but for revenge upon those who 
had triumphed in their overthrow. Their people had spread over 
the West, and carried with them their religion and hatred — they 
were ambitious of more territory, over which to propagate their race 
and creed ; yet preparatory to the great end of their aims, and the 
agitation necessary to the education of their people upon this subject, 
they must commence in the pulpit to abolish some cursing sin which 
stood in their way. They had found it, and a fit instrument, too, in 
Lyman Beecher, to commence the work. It was the sin of slavery. 
It stood in the way of New England progress and New England 
civilization. New England religion must come to the rescue. There 
was nothing good which could come from the South ; all was tainted 
with this crying sin. New England purity, through New England 
Puritanism, must permeate all the land, and effect the good work — 
and none so efficient as Beecher. The students of the law-school had 
a pew in his little synagogue — it was after the fashion of a square 
pew, with seats all around, and to this he would direct his eye when 
pouring out his anathemas upon the South, Southern habits, and 
Southern institutions ; four out of five of the members of the school 
were from the South. 

It was his habit to ascribe the origin and practice of every vice to 
slavery. Debauchery of every grade, name, and character, was born 
of this, and though every on^ of these vices, in full practice, were 
reeking under his nose, and permeating every class of his own people; 
when seven out of every ten of the bawds of every brothel, from 
Maine to the Sabine, were from New England, they were only odious 
in the South. I remember upon one occasion he was dilating exten- 
sively upon the vice of drunkenness, and accounting it as peculiar to 
the South, and the direct offshoot of slavery, he exclaimed, with his 
eyes fixed upon the students' pew: "Yes, my brethren, it is peculiar 
to the people who foster the accursed institution of slavery, and so 
common is it in the South, that the father who yields his daughter 
in wedlock, never thinks of asking if her intended is a sober man. 
All he asks, or seems desirous to know, is whether he is good-natured 



FIFTY YEARS. 221 

in his cups." Before him sat his nest of young adders, growing up 
to inherit his religion, talents, and vindictive spirit. Instilled into 
those from their cradles were all the dogmas of Puritanism, to stimu- 
late the mischievous spirit of the race to evil works. Admirably 
have they fulfilled their destiny. To the preaching and writings of 
the men and women descended from Lyman Beecher has more 
misery ensued, than from any other one source, for the last century. 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" has slain its hundreds of thousands, and the 
sermons of Henry Ward Beecher have made to flow an ocean of 
blood. 

The example of Pymm, Cromwell, Whaley, and Goff, and their 
fate, has taught the Puritans no useful lesson. They seem to think 
to triumph in civil war, as their ancestors did, regardless of the 
danger that a reaction may bring to them, is all they can desire. 
The fate of these men has no warning. Reactions sometimes come 
with terrible consequences. They cannot see Cromwell's dead body 
hanging in chains. They will not remember the fate of Whaley and 
Goff, whose bones are mouldering in their own New Haven, after 
flying their country and, for )«ears, hiding in caves and cellars from 
the revengeful pursuit of resentful enemies. The Pymms and the 
Praise-God-bare-bones of the thirty-ninth Congress may and (it is to 
be hoped) will yet meet the merited reward of their crimes of perse- 
cution and oppression. 

At the time of which I write, there were many remaining in Con- 
necticut who participated in the conflicts and perils of the Revolu- 
tion. These men were all animated with strong national sentiments, 
and felt that every part of the Union was their country. They idol- 
ized Washington, and always spoke with affectionate praise of the 
Southern spirit, so prominent in her troops during the war. The 
conduct of the South (and especially that of Georgia toward Gen- 
eral Greene, in donating him a splendid plantation, with a palatial 
residence, upon the Savannah River, near the city of Savannah, 
to which he removed, lived, and in which he died,) was munificent, 
and characteristic of a noble and generous people. 

But these were passing away, and a new people were coming into 
their places. The effects of a common cause, a common danger, 
and a united success, were not felt by these. New interests excited 
new aspirations. The nation's peril was past, and she was one of 
the great powers of the earth, and acknowledged as such. She had 
19* 



222 THE MEMORIES OF 

triumphantly passed through a second war with her unnatural mother, 
in which New England, as a people, had reaped no glory. In the 
midst of the struggle, she had called a convention of her people, with 
a view of withdrawing from the Union. Her people had invited the 
enemy, with their blue-light signals, to enter the harbor they were 
blockading, and where the American ships, under the command of 
one of our most gallant commanders, had sought refuge. They were 
sorely chagrined, and full of wrath. They hated the South and her 
people. It was growing, and they were nursing it. Even then we 
were a divided people, with every interest conserving to unite us — 
the South producing and consuming ; the North manufacturing, car- 
rying, and selling for, and to, the South. The harmony of com- 
merce, and the harmony of interest, had lost its power, and we were 
a divided people. The breach widened, war followed, and ruin riots 
over the land. The South was the weaker, and went down ; the 
North was the stronger, and triumphed — and the day of her ven- 
geance has come. 

In that remote time, the chase after the almighty dollar had com- 
menced, and especially in New England, where every sentiment was 
subordinate to this. Patriotism was a secondary sentiment. Hypo- 
critical pretension to the purity of religion was used to cover the 
vilest practices, and to shield from public indignation men who, 
praying, pressed into their service the vilest means to make haste to 
be rich. The sordid parsimony of ninety-hundredths of the popula- 
tion shut out every sentiment of generosity, and rooted from the 
heart every emotion honorable to human nature. Neighborhood 
intercourse was poisoned with selfishness, and the effort to overreach, 
and make money out of, the ignorance or necessities of these, was 
universal. These degrading practices crept into every business, and 
petty frauds soon became designated as Yankee tricks. There was 
nothing ennobling in their pursuits. The honorable profession of 
law dwindled into pettifogging tricks. Commerce was degraded in 
their hands by fraud and chicanery. The pernicious and grasping 
nature everywhere cultivated, soon fastened upon the features. Their 
eyes were pale, their features lank and hard, and the stony nature 
was apparent in the icy coldness of manner, in the deceitful grin, 
and lip-laugh, which the eye never shared, and which was only 
affected, when interest prompted, or the started suspicions of an in- 
tended victim warned them to be wary. The climate, and the inhos- 



FIFTY YEARS, 223 

pitable and ungenerous soil, seemed to impart to the people their own 
natures. 

The men were all growing sharp, and the women, cold and pas- 
sionless ; the soul appeared to shrivel and sink into induration, and 
the whole people were growing into a nation of cheats and dastards. 
Such was the promise for the people of New England, in 1820. Has 
it not been realized in the years of the recent intestine war? The 
incentive held out to her people to volunteer into her armies, was the 
plunder of the South. The world has never witnessed such rapacity 
for gain as marked the armies of the United States in their march 
through the South. Religion and humanity were lost sight of in 
the general scramble for the goods and the money of the Southern 
people. Rings were snatched from the fingers of ladies and torn 
from their ears ; their wardrobes plundered and forwarded to ex- 
pectant families at home; graves were violated for the plates of gold 
and silver that might be found upon the coffins; the dead bodies 
of women and men were unshrouded after exhumation, to search 
in the coffins and shrouds to see if valuables were not here concealed ; 
and, in numerous instances, the teeth were torn from the skeleton 
mouths of the dead for the gold plugs, or gold plates that might be 
found there. Nor was this heathenish rapacity confined to the common 
soldier; the commanders and subalterns participated with acquisitive 
eagerness, sharing fully with their commands the hellish instincts of 
their race. 

They professed to come to liberate the slave, and they uniformly 
robbed or swindled him of every valuable he might possess — even 
little children were stripped of their garments, as trophies of war, to 
be forwarded home for the wear of embryo Puritans, as an example 
for them in future. Such are the Yankees of 1863-4, and '67. They 
now hold control of the nation ; but her mighty heart is sore under 
their oppression. She is beginning to writhe. It will not be long, 
before with a mighty effort she will burst the bonds these people 
have tied about her limbs, will reassert the freedom of her children, 
and scourge their oppressors with a whip of scorpions. 

Such men as Talmage, Humphries, and Wolcott are no more to be 
found in New England. The animus of these nten is no longer with 
these people. The work of change is complete. Nothing remains 
of their religion but its semblance — the fanaticism of Cotton 
Mather, without his sincerity — the persecuting spirit of Cotton, 



224 THE MEMORIES OF 

without the sincerity of his motives. Every tie that once united the 
descendants of the Norman with those of the Saxon is broken. 
They are tvvo in interest, two in feeling, two in blood, and two in 
hatred. For a time they may dwell together, but not in unison; for 
they have nothing in common but hatred. Its fruit is discord, and 
the day is not distant, when these irreconcilable elements must be 
ruled with a power despotic as independent, whose will must be law 
unto both. It is painful to look back fifty years and contrast the 
harmony then pervading every class of every section with the dis- 
cord and bitterness of hate which substitutes it to day. Then, the 
national airs of *' Hail Columbia " and " Yankee Doodle " thrilled 
home to the heart of every American. To-day, they are only heard 
in one half of the Union to be cursed and execrated. To ask a lady 
to play one of these airs upon the harp or piano, from the Rio 
Grande to the Potomac, would be resented as an insult. The fame 
of Washington and John Hancock mingled as the united nations; 
but the conduct of the sons of the Puritan fathers has stolen the 
respect for them from the heart of half of the nation; and now, 
even the once glorious name of Daniel Webster stirs no enthusiasm 
in the bosoms which once beat joyfully to his praise, as it came to 
them from New England. Those who from party purposes proclaim 
peace and good will, only deceive the world, not themselves, or the 
people of the South. Peace there is ; but good will, none. ■>NWhen 
asked to be given, memory turns to the battle-fields upon Southern 
soil, the bloody graves where the chosen spirits of the South are 
sleeping, and the heart burns with indignant hatred. Generations 
may come and pass away, but this hatred, this cursed memory of 
oppressive wrong will live on. The mothers of to-day make for 
their infants a tradition of these memories, and it will be transmitted 
as the highlander's cross of fire, from clan to clan, in burning bright- 
ness, for a thousand years. The graveyards will no more perish than 
the legends of the war that made them. They are in our midst, our 
children, the kindred of all are there — and those who are to come 
will go there — and their mothers, as Hamilcar did, will make them 
upon these green graves swear eternal hatred to those who with their 
vengeance filled these sacred vaults. 

We are expected to love those whose ha^ids are red with the blood 
of our children ; to take to our bosoms the murderers and robbers 
who have slain upon the soil of their nativity our people, and who , 



FIFTYYEARS. 223 

have robbed our homes and devastated our country ; who have fat- 
tened Southern soil with Southern blood, and enriched their homes 
with the stolen wealth of ours. Are we not men, and manly? Do 
we feel as men? and is not this insult to manliness, and a vile 
mockery to the feelings of men? We can never forget — we will 
never forgive, and we will wait ; for when the opportunity shall 
come, as come it will, we will avenge the damning wrong. 

This may be unchristian, but it is natural — nature is of God and 
will assert herself. No mawkish pretension, no hypocritical cant, 
can repress the natural feelings of the heart: its loves and resentments 
are its strongest passions, and the love that we bore for our children 
and kindred kindles to greater vigor in the hatred we bear for their 
murderers. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

CONGRESS IN ITS BRIGHTEST DAYS. 

Missouri Compromise — John Randolph's Juba — Mr. Macon — Holmes and 
Crawford — Mr. Clay's Influence — James Barbor — Philip P. Bar- 
BOR — Mr. Pinckney — Mr. Beecher, of Ohio — " Cuckoo, Cuckoo ! " — 
National Roads — William Lowndes — William Roscoe — Duke of 
Argyle — Louis McLean — Whig and Democratic Parties. 

IT was at the last session of the fifteenth Congress, in the winter 
of 1820-21, when the famous Compromise measure, known as 
the Missouri Compromise, was effected. A portion of that winter 
was spent by the writer at Washington. Congress was then com- 
posed of the first intellects of the nation, and the measure was causing 
great excitement throughout the entire country. 

Missouri, in obedience to a permissory statute, had framed a con- 
stitution, and demanded admission into the Union as a State. By 
this constitution slavery was recognized as an institution of the 
State. Objection was made to this clause on the part of the Northern 
members, which led to protracted and sometimes acrimonious debate. 
At the first session of the Congress the admission of the State had 
been postponed, and during the entire second session it had been 

P 



226 THE MEMORIES OF 

the agitating question ; nor was it until the very end of the session 
settled by this famous compromise. 

The debates were conducted by the ablest men in Congress, in 
both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Senate, 
William Pinckney, of Maryland ; Rufus King, of New York ; Har- 
rison Gray Otis, of Massachusetts ; James Barbor, of Virginia ; Wil- 
liam Smith, of South Carolina, and Freeman Walker, of Georgia, 
were most conspicuous. In the House were John Randolph, of Vir- 
ginia ; William Lowndes, of South Carolina ; Louis McLean, of Dela- 
ware ; Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia, and Louis Williams, of North 
Carolina, and many others of less note. Henry Clay, of Kentucky, 
was Speaker of the House during the first session of the Congress ; 
but resigned before the meeting of the succeeding Congress, and 
John Taylor, of New York, was elected to preside as Speaker for the 
second session. Mr. Clay was absent from his seat during the early 
part of this session ; and notwithstanding the eminent men composing 
the Congress, there seemed a want of some leading and controlling 
mind to master the difficulty, and calm the threatening excitement 
which was intensifying as the debate progressed. Mr. Randolph was 
the leader in the debates of the House, and occupied the floor fre- 
quently in the delivery of lengthy and almost always very interesting 
speeches. These touched every subject connected with the Govern- 
ment, its history, and its powers. They were brilliant and beautiful ; 
full of classical learning and allusion, and sparkling as a casket of 
dianwnds, thrown upon, and rolling along, a Wilton carpet. It 
seemed to be his pleasure to taunt the opposition to enforce an angry 
or irritable reply, and then to launch the arrows of his biting wit 
and sarcasm at whoever dared the response, in such rapid profusion, 
as to astonish the House, and overwhelm his antagonist. 

His person was as unique as his manner. He was tall and 
extremely slender. His habit was to wear an overcoat extending to 
the floor, with an upright standing collar which concealed his entire 
person except his head, which seemed to be set, by the ears, upon 
the collar of his coat. In early morning it was his habit to ride on 
horseback. This ride was frequently extended to the hour of the 
meeting of Congress. When this was the case, he always rode to 
the Capitol, surrendered his horse to his groom — the ever-faithful, 
Juba, who always accompanied him in these rides — and, with his 
ornamental riding-whip in his hand, a small cloth or leathern cap 



FIFTY YEARS. 227 

perched upon the top of his head, (which peeped out, wan and 
meagre, from between the openings of his coat-collar,) booted and 
gloved, he would walk to his seat in the House — then in session — 
lay down upon his desk his cap and whip, and then slowly remove 
his gloves. If the matter before the House interested him, and he 
desired to be heard, he would fix his large, round, lustrous black 
eyes upon the Speaker, and, in a voice shrill and piercing as the cry 
of a peacock, exclaim : " Mr. Speaker ! " then, for a moment or two, 
remain looking down upon his desk, as if to collect his thoughts; 
then lifting his eyes to the Speaker would commence, in a conversa- 
tional tone, an address that not unfrequently extended through five 
hours, when he would yield to a motion for adjournment, with the 
understanding that he was to finish his speech the following day. 

He had but few associates. These were all from the South, and 
very select. With Mr. Macon, Mr. Crawford, Louis Williams, and 
Mr. Cobb, he was intimate. He was a frequent visitor to the family 
of Mr. Crawford, then Secretary of the Treasury, where occasionally 
he met Macon and Cobb, with other friends of Crawford. Macon 
and Crawford were his models of upright men. He believed Mr. 
Crawford to be the first intellect of the age, and Mr. Macon the 
most honest man. The strict honesty of Macon captivated him, as 
it did most men. His home-spun ideas, his unaffected plainness of 
dress, and primitive simplicity of manner, combined with a wonder- 
ful fund of common sense, went home to the heart of Randolph, and 
he loved Macon in sincerity. * 

Macon and Crawford humored his many eccentricities, and would 
always deferentially listen to him when the humor was on him to talk. 
It was at such times that Randolph was most interesting. He had 
read much, and to great advantage; he had travelled, and with an 
observant eye ; he knew more, and he knew it more accurately, than 
any other man of his country, except, perhaps, that wonderful man, 
William Lowndes. In his talking moods all the store-house of his 
information was drafted into service. His command of language 
was wonderful. The antithetical manner of expressing himself gave 
piquancy and vim to his conversation, making it very captivating. 
He was too impatient, and had too much nervous irritability and too 
rapid a flow of ideas, to indulge in familiar and colloquial conversa- 
tion.^ He would talk all, or none. He inaugurated a subject and 
exhausted it, and there were few who desired more than to listen 



2 28 THEMEMORIESOF 

when he talked. Two or three evenings in the week there would 
assemble at Mr. Crawford's a few gentlemen, members of Congress. 
This was especially the case pending the Missouri question, when 
Mr. Randolph, Mr. Macon, Mr. McLean, Mr. Holmes, of Maine, 
(a great admirer of Mr. Crawford,) Mr. Lowndes, and sometimes 
one or two gentlemen from Pennsylvania, would be present. At 
these meetings this question was the first and principal topic, and Mr. 
Randolph would engross the entire conversation for an hour, when 
he would almost universally rise, bid good-night, and leave. At 
other times he would listen attentively, without uttering a word, par- 
ticularly when Crawford or Lowndes were speaking. These, then, 
almost universally, did all the talking. The diversity of opinion 
scarcely ever prompted reply or interruption. In these conversa- 
tions the great powers of Crawford's mind would break out, astonish- 
ing and convincing every one. 

It was upon one of these occasions, when discussing in connection 
with the Missouri question, the subject of slavery, its influences, and 
its future, that Mr. Crawford remarked : "If the Union is of more 
importance to the South than slavery, the South should immediately 
take measures for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, fixing a 
period for its final extinction. But if the institution of slavery is of 
more vital importance than the perpetuation of the Union to the 
South, she should at once secede and establish a government to pro- 
tect and preserve this institution. She now has the power to do sq» 
without the fear of provoking a war. Her people should be unani- 
mous, and this agitation has made them so — I believe. I know the 
love of the Union has been paramount to every other consideration 
with the Southern people ; but they view, as I do, this attempt to 
arrest the further spread of slavery as aggressive on the part of 
Congress, and discover an alarming state of the Northern mind 
upon this subject. This with an increasing popular strength may 
grow into proportions which shall be irresistible, and the South may 
be ultimately forced to do, what she never will voluntarily do — abol- 
ish at once the institution." It was urged by Mr. Holmes that the 
Constitution guaranteed slavery to the States, that its control and 
destiny was alone with the States, and there was no danger that the 
North would ever violate the Constitution to interfere with what they 
had no interest in. 

"Never violate the Constitution!" said Randolph, in an excited 



FIFTY YEARS. 229 

and querulous tone. "Mr. Holmes, you perhaps know the nature 
of your people better than I do. But I know them well enough not 
to trust them. They stickle at nothing to accomplish an end ; and 
their preachers can soon convince them that slavery is a sin, and 
that they are responsible for its existence here, and that they can 
only propitiate offended Deity by its abolition. You are a peculiar 
people, Holmes, prone to fanaticism upon all subjects, and this 
fanaticism concentrated as a religious duty — the Constitution will 
only prove a barrier of straw. No, sir; I am unwilling to trust them. 
They want honesty of purpose, have no sincerity, no patriotism, no 
principle. Your dough-faces will profess, but at a point will fly the 
track, sir; they can't stand, sir; they can't stand pressing. Interest, 
interest, sir, is their moving motive. Do you not see it in their 
action in this matter ? Missouri is a fertile and lovely country ; they 
want it for the purpose of settlement with their own people. Pro- 
hibit slavery to the inhabitants, and no Southern man will go there; 
there will be no competition in the purchase of her land. Your 
people will have it all to themselves; they will flock to it like wild 
geese, and very soon it is a Northern State in Northern interest; and, 
step after step, all the Western territory will be in your possession, 
and you will create States ab libitijtt. You know the Constitution 
permits two-thirds of the States to amend or alter it : establish the 
principle that Congress can exclude slavery from a territory, contrary 
to the wishes of her people expressed in a constitution formed by 
them for their government, and how long will it be, before two-thirds 
of the States will be free? Then you can change the Constitution 
and place slavery under the control of Congress- — and, under such 
circumstances, how long will it be permitted to remain in any 
State ? • 

"Your people are too religious, sir; eminently practical, inventive, 
restless, cold, calculating, malicious, and ambitious ; invent curious 
rat-traps, and establish missions. I don 't want to be trapped, sir ; 
I am too wary a rat for that; and think with Mr. Crawford, now is 
the time for separation, and I mean to ask Clay to unite with us. 
Yet, sir, I have not spoken to the fellow for years, sir ; but I will 
to-morrow ; I will tell him I always despised him, but if .he will go 
to his people, I will to mine, and tell them now is the time for sepa- 
ration from you ; and I will follow his lead if he will only do so, if 
it leads me to perdition. I never did follow it, but in this matter I 
20 



230 THE MEMORIES OF 

will. I bid you good night, gentlemen." He waited for no reply, 
but taking his hat and whip, hurriedly left the room. 

" Can Mr. Randolph be in earnest? " asked several. 

"Intensely so," replied Mr. Crawford. " Mr. Holmes, your peo- 
ple are forcing Mr. Randolph's opinions upon the entire South. They 
will not permit Northern intermeddling with that which peculiarly 
interests themselves, and over which they alone hold control." 
, There was a pause, the party was uneasy. There were more than 
Mr. Holmes present who were startled at both Crawford's and Ran- 
dolph's speculation as to the value of the Union. They had ever 
felt that this was anchored safely in every American breast, and was 
paramount to every other consideration or interest. It was a terrible 
heresy, and leading to treason. This was not said, but it was thought, 
and in no very agreeable mood the party separated for the night. 

Mr. Clay had just arrived from Kentucky. There had been many 
speculations as to what course he would pursue in this delicate mat- 
ter. Many had suspended their opinions awaiting his action. The 
members from Ohio were generally acting and voting with those of 
the East and North. Some seemed doubtful, and it was supposed 
Mr. Clay would exercise great influence with all the West, and those 
from Ohio, especially. Hence, his coming was universally and 
anxiously awaited. .But now he was in Washington, all were on the 
qui vive. 

Randolph's declaration was whispered about in the morning, and 
little coteries were grouped about the hall of the House of Representa- 
tives. Randolph was in conversation, near the Speaker's chair, with the 
clerk, who was pointing and calling his attention to something upon 
the journal of the House. The hour of meeting was at hand, and 
the crowd was increasing upon the floor. Mr. Taylor was in conver- 
sation, near the fire-place, on the left of the Speaker's chair, with 
Stratford Canning, the British Plenipotentiary, Harrison Gray Otis, 
and Governor Chittenden, of Vermont. Mr. Clay entered in com- 
pany with William S. Archer, a man whose only merit and sole pride 
was the having been born in Virginia ; whose pusillanimous arro- 
gance was only equalled by the poverty of his intellect, and who 
always foisted himself upon the presence of eminent men, deeming 
he was great because of his impudence and their association. All 
eyes were turned to Clay, and the members flocked about him. 
Releasing himself from these he came up the aisle toward the 



FIFTY YEARS. 23 1 

Speaker's chair. Mr. Randolph stepped into the aisle immediately 
in front of the chair. At this moment Clay discovered him and, 
towering to his full height, paused within a few feet of him whose 
eye he saw fixed upon his own. 

Randolph advanced and, without extending his hand, said : 
"Good morning, Mr. Clay." Clay bowed, and Randolph imme- 
diately said : " I have a duty to perform to my country; so have 
you, Mr. Clay. Leave your seat here, sir, and return to your people, 
as I will to mine. Tell them, as I will mine, that the time has come: 
if they would save themselves from ruin, and preserve the liberties 
for which their fathers bled, they must separate from these men of 
the North. Do so, sir; and, though I never did before, I will follow 
your lead in the effort to save our people, and their liberties." Mr. 
Clay listened, and without apparent surprise remarked, with a smile : 
" Mr. Randolph, that will require more reflection than this moment 
of time affords," and bowing passed on. 

But a bomb had fallen on the floor, and consternation was on 
every face. All turned to Mr. Clay. All saw a crisis was at hand, 
and that this matter must be settled as speedily as possible. Archer 
filed off with Randolph, who affected to pet him, as some men do 
foils for their wit, in the person of a toady. 

A few days after this occurrence the famous Compromise measure 
was reported, and the first speech I ever listened to from Mr. Clay was 
in its advocacy. About him was gathered the talent of the Senate 
and the House. The lobbies and galleries were filled to overflow- 
ing. Mr. Pinckney, of Maryland ; Landman, of Connecticut ; Rufus 
King, William Lowndes, Otis, Holmes, Macon, and others, all mani- 
fested intense interest in the speech of Mr. Clay. How grandly 
he towered up over those seated about him ! Dressed in a full 
suit of black, his hair combed closely down to his head, display- 
ing its magnificent proportions, with his piercing, gray eyes fixed 
upon those of the Speaker, he poured out, in fervid words, the wis- 
dom of his wonderful mind, and the deep feelings of his great heart. 
All accorded to him sincerity and exalted patriotism ; all knew and 
confided in his wisdom ; all knew him to be a national man, and into 
the hearts of all his words sank deep, carryingconviction, and calm- 
ing the storm of angry passions which threatened not only the peace, 
but the existence of the Government. All the majesty of his nature 
seemed as a halo emanating from his person and features, as, turning 



232 THE MEMORIES OF 

to those grouped about him, and then to the House, his words, warm 
and persuasive, flowing as a stream of melody, with his hand lifted 
from his desk, he said : 

"I wish that my country should be prosperous, and her Govern- 
ment perpetual. I am in my soul assured that no other can ever 
afford the same protection to human liberty, and insure the same 
amount. Leave the North to her laws and her institutions. Extend 
the same conciliating charity to the South and West. Their people, 
as yours, know best their wants — know best their interests. Let 
them provide for their own — our system is one of compromises — and 
in the spirit of harmony come together, in the spirit of brothers 
compromise any and every jarring sentiment or interest which may 
arise in tne progress of the country. There is security in this ; there 
is peace, and fraternal union. Thus we may, we shall, go on to 
cover this entire continent with prosperous States, and a contented, 
self-governed, and happy people. To the unrestrained energies of 
an intelligent and enterprising people, the mountains shall yield 
their mineral tribute, the valleys their cereals and fruits, and a mil- 
lion gf millions of contented and prosperous people shall demon- 
strate to an admiring world the great problem that man is capable of 
self-government." 

There beamed from every countenance a pleased satisfaction, as 
the members of the Senate and the House came up to express their 
delight, and their determination to support the measure proposed, 
and so ably advocated. There was oil upon the waters, and the tur- 
bulent waves went down. Men who had been estranged and angered 
for many months, met, and with friendly smiles greeted each other 
again. The ladies in the gallery above rose up as if by a common 
impulse, to look do\vn, with smiles, upon the great commoner. One 
whose silvered hair, parted smoothly and modestly upon her aged 
forehead, fell in two massy folds behind her ears, clasped her hands, 
and audibly uttered: "God bless him." 

The reconciliation seemed to be effected, and the confidence and 
affection between the sections to be renewed with increased fervor 
and intensity. There was rejoicing throughout the land. Dissatis- 
faction only spake from the pulpits of New England, and there only 
from those of the Puritan Congregationalists. But the public heart 
had received a shock, and though it beat on-, it was not with the 
healthful tone of former days. 



FIFTY YEARS. 233 

The men of the Revolution were rapidly passing to eternity. The 
cement of blood which bound these as one was dissolving, and the 
fabric of their creation was undermined in the hearts of the people, 
with corroding prejudices, actively fomented by the bigotry of a 
selfish superstition. A sectional struggle for supremacy had com- 
menced. The control of the Government was the aim, and patriot- 
ism was consuming in the flame of ambition. The Government's 
security, the Government's perpetuity, and the common good, were 
no longer prime considerations. All its demonstrated blessings had 
remained as ever the sarne. Stimulated by the same motives and the 
same ambitions, the new world and the new Government were 
moving in the old groove; and the old world saw repeating here the 
history of all the Governments which had arisen, lived, and passed 
away, in her own borders. The mighty genius of Clay and Webster, 
of Jackson and Calhoun, had, for a time, stayed the rapid progress 
of ruin which had begun to show itself, but only for a time. They 
have been gathered to their fathers, and the controlling influence of 
their mighty minds being removed, confusion, war, and ruin have 
followed. 

The men conspicuous in the debates on the Missouri question were 
giants in intellect, and perhaps few deliberative assemblies of the 
world ever contained more talent, or more public virtue. At the 
head of these stood Henry Clay, Pinckney, Rufus King, William 
Lowndes, Harrison Gray Otis, William Smith, Louis McLean, the 
two Barbors, John Randolph, Freeman Walker, Thomas W. Cobb, 
and John Holmes, of Maine. 

James Barbox was a member of the Senate ; Philip P. Barbqf , of 
the House. They were brothers, and both from Virginia. "^They 
were both men of great abilities, but their style and manner were 
very difl"erent. James was a verbose and orpate declaimer ; Philip 
was a close, cogent reasoner, without any attempt at elegance or dis- 
play. He labored to convince the mind ; James, to control and 
direct the feelings. A wag wrote upon the wall of the House, at the 
conclusion of a masterly argument of Philip P. Barbor, ^ '^ 

" Two Barbers to shave our Congress long did try. 
One shaves with froth; the other shaves dry." 

Of the Senate Mr. Pinkney was the great orator. His speech upon 
this most exciting question has ever been considered the most fin- 
20* 



234 THE MEMORIES OF 

ished for eloquence and power, ever delivered in the United States 
Senate. The effect upon the Senate, and the audience assembled in 
the galleries and lobbies of the Senate, was thrilling. Mr. King was 
old, but retained in their vigor his faculties, was more tame perhaps 
than in his younger years ; still the clearness and brilliancy of his 
powerful mind manifested itself in his every effort. Mr. Pinkney 
had all the advantages which a fine manly person and clear, musical 
voice gives to an orator. He spoke but rarely and never without great 
preparation. He was by no means a ready debater, and prized too 
much his reputation to hazard anything in an impromptu, extempo- 
raneous address. He listened, for weeks, to King, Otis, and others 
who debated the question, and came at last prepared in one great 
effort to answer and demolish the arguments of these men. Those 
who listened to that wonderful effort of forensic power will never 
forget his reply to King, when he charged him with uttering senti- 
ments in debate calculated to incite a servile war. The picture he 
drew of such a war : the massacring by infuriated black savages 
of delicate women and children ; the burning and destroying of 
cities ; the desolating by fire and sword the country, was so thrilling 
and descriptively perfect, that you smelt the blood, saw the flames, 
and heard the shrieks of perishing victims. Mr. King shuddered 
as he looked on the orator, and listened to his impassioned decla- 
mation. But when Pinkney turned from the President of the Senate 
and, flashing his eye upon King, eontinued in words hissing in whis- 
pers, full of pathos as of biting indignation, Mr. King folded his 
arms and rested his head upon them, concealing his features and 
emotion from the speaker and the Senate. For two hours the Senate 
and galleries were chained as it were to their seats. At times so 
mtense was the feeling, that a pause of the speaker made audible the 
hard and excited breathing of the audience, catching their breath as 
though respiration had been painfully suspended and relief had come 
in this pause. When he had finished and resumed his seat, there 
was profound silence for many seconds, when a Senator in seeming 
trepidation rose and moved An adjournment. 

Mr. Pinkney was in every respect a most finished gentleman, highly 
bred, only associating with the first men and minds of the country ; 
courteous and polished in his manners, and scrupulously neat in his 
dress, which was always in the height of fashion and always of the 
finest and most costly materials. He never came to the Senate but 



FI FTY YEARS. 235 

in full dress, and would have been mortified to find a mite of lint 
upon his coat, or a dash of dust upon his boots. 

At that time the United States Senate was the most august and 
dignified body in the world. What is it to-day ? O tempora, O mores ! 
In the House, the palm of oratory was disputed between Mr. Clay 
and Mr. Randolph. Their styles were so different, and both so 
effective, that it was difficult to distinguish by comparison, to which 
belonged the distinction of being first. Mr. Clay was always col- 
lected and self-possessed — he was, too, always master of his subject; 
and though he was a ready debater, he never made a set speech upon 
any important subject without careful preparation. He was not easily 
disconcerted ; courageous, with a strong will, he feared no intemperate 
opposition, and was never restrained from uttering his sentiments and 
opinions of men or rfieasures. He was kind and generous, until 
aroused or offended and, then, was merciless. His sarcasm and 
invective upon such occasions was withering, and his vehemence 
daring and terrible. No man of his day had a mind better bal- 
anced than Mr. Clay. His judgment was almost always correct; his 
imagination brilliant, but always under the control of his judg- 
ment; his memory and preceptive faculties were wonderful; his edu- 
cation was defective, and the associations of the West had not given 
that polish to his manners which distinguishes men of education, 
reared in educated communities, and associating always with polished 
society. Mr. Clay had been at the most polished courts of Europe, 
and was familiar with their most refined society ; but these he visited 
in mature life,, after the manners are formed, and habit made them 
indurate. He had long been familiar, too, with the best society in 
his own country and, by this, had been much improved. Still the 
Kentuckian would sometimes come through the shell, but always in 
a manner more to delight than offend ; besides, Mr. Clay set little 
value upon forms and ceremony. There was too much heart for 
such cold seeming, too much fire for the chill, unfeeling ceremony 
of what is termed first society. 

Mr. Clay's manners partook much of the character of his mind 
and soul. They were prompt, bold, and easy ; his eloquence was 
bold, rough, and overwhelming. 

Like all men of genius, will, and self-reliance, Mr. Clay was 
impatient of contradiction. The similarity in this regard, between 
Jackson, Clay, and Crawford was wonderful. They were equally 



236 THE MEMORIES OF 

passionate, equally impetuous, and equally impatient — all being 
natural men of great powers and limited education. To say they 
were self-made, would be paying the Almighty a left-handed com- 
pliment. But to say they assiduously cultivated His great gifts with- 
out much aid from the schoolmaster, would only be doing them 
unbiased justice. 

Randolph was clasically educated. He had enjoyed every advan- 
tage of cultivation. Socially, he had never mingled with any but 
refined society. The franchise of suffrage in Virginia was confined 
to the freeholders, thus obviating in the public man the necessity of 
mingling with, and courting the good opinion of the multitude. The 
system, too, of electioneering was to address from the hustings the 
voters, to declare publiply the opinions of candidates, and the pol- 
icy they proposed supporting. The vote was given viva voce. All 
concurred to make representative and constituent frank and honest. 
While this system existed, Virginia ruled the nation. These means 
secured the services of the first intellects, and the first characters of 
her people. The system was a training for debate and public dis- 
play. Eloquence became the first requisite to the candidate, and 
was the most powerful means of influence and efficiency in the rep- 
resentative. Randolph had been thus trained ; he had listened to, 
and been instructed by the eloquence of Patrick Henry, in his early 
youth, and in later life had met him as a competitor on the hustings. 
He had grown up by the side of Edmonds, Peyton Randolph, 
George Mason, and Thomas Jefferson. In his very youth he had 
excited the wonder and admiration of these great minds. He was 
sent into the Congress of the United States almost before he was 
qualified by age to take his seat ; and at once took position by the 
side of such men as William B. Giles, William H. Crawford, James 
A. Byard, and Littleton W. Tazwell. His style of speaking was pecu- 
liar; his wit was bitter and biting; his sarcasm more pungent and 
withering than had ever been heard on the floor of Congress ; his 
figure w^as outre; his voice, fine as the treble of a violin; his face, 
wan, wrinkled, and without beard ; his limbs, long and unsightly, 
especially his arms and fingers; the skin seemed to grow to the 
attenuated bone ; and the large, ill-formed joints were extremely 
ugly. But those fingers, and especially the right fore-finger, gave 
point and vim to his wit and invective. 

In his manner he was at times deliberate, and apparently very 



FIFTY YEARS. 237 

considerate, and again he was rapid and vehement. When he would 
demolish an adversary, he would commence slowly, as if to collect 
all his powers, preparatory to one great onset. He would turn and 
talk, as it were, to all about him, and seemingly incongruously. It 
was as if he was slinging and whirling his chain-shot about his head, 
"and circling it more and more rapidly, to collect all his strength for 
the fatal blow. All knew it would fall, but none knew where, until 
he had collected his utmost strength, and then, with the electrical 
flash of his eye, he would mark the victim, and the thundering crash 
of his vengeance, in words of vehemence, charged with the most 
caustic satire, would fall upon, and cnish the devoted head of his 
scarce suspecting foe. I remember, upon one occasion, pending the 
debate upon the Missouri question, and when Mr. Randolph was in 
the habit of almost daily addressing the house, that a Mr. Beecher, 
of Ohio, who was very impatient with Randolph's tirades, would, in 
the lengthy pauses made by him, rise from his place, and move the 
previous question. The Speaker would reply: "The member from 
Virginia has the floor." The first and second interruption was not 
noticed by Randolph, but upon the repetition a third time, he slowly 
lifted his head from contemplating his notes, and, said: "Mr. 
Speaker, in the Netherlands, a man of small capacity, with bits of 
wood and leather, will, in a few moments, construct a toy that, with 
the pressure of the finger and thumb, will cry ' Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! ' 
With less of ingenuity, and with inferior materials, the people of 
Ohio have made a toy that will, without much pressure, cry, ' Pre- 
vious question, Mr. Speaker! Previous question, Mr. Speaker! ' " 
at the same time designating Beecher, by pointing at him with his 
long, skeleton-looking finger. In a moment the House was con- 
vulsed with laughter, and I doubt if Beecher ever survived the 
sarcasm. 

At the time Mr. Clay came into Congress, Randolph had no rival 
upon the floor of the House. He had become a terror to timid men. 
Few ventured to meet him in debate, and none to provoke him. Mr. 
Clay's reputation had preceded him. He had before, for a short 
time, been in the Senate. He was known to be the first orator in 
the West, and the West boasted Doddridge, Humphrey Marshall, 
John Rowan, Jesse Bledsoe, John Pope, and Felix Grundy. 

It was not long, before these two met in debate upon the subject 
of the national road. Randolph opposed this measure as unconsti- 



238 THE MEMORIES OF 

tutional, denying to the General Government any power to make 
any improvements within the limits of any State, without the consent 
of the State. Mr. Clay claimed the power under that grant which 
constituted Congress competent to establish post-ofifices and post- 
roads. The discussion was an excited one. Mr. Clay was a Vir- 
ginian, but not of Randolph's class; besides, he was not now from 
Virginia, and Randolph chose to designate him a degenerate, rene- 
gade son of the Old Dominion. He had been reared, as Randolph, 
a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school. In this he was an apostate 
from the ancient faith. Randolph fully expected an easy victory, 
and no man upon the floor was more surprised than himself, at the 
bold, eloquent, and defiant reply of Clay. Between them the com- 
bat was fierce and protracted. Randolph had the mortification of 
seeing Western Virginia moving with Clay, and the entire represen- 
tation of the Western States joining with them. Clay was triumphant. 
The measure became a law, the road was built, and a monument was 
erected to Mr. Clay in Western Virginia, and by Virginians. It 
stands in a beautiful valley, immediately on the road's side. From 
that time until, as old men, they met in mortal combat upon the 
banks of the Potomac, they were rivals and enemies. 

Randolph was rancorous in his hatred of Clay. In proportion as 
Clay rose in the estimation of his countrymen, did Randolph's hate 
increase. Clay sprang from the plebeian stock of his native Virginia. 
He had come as the representative of the rustics of Kentucky. He 
was not sanctified by a college diploma. He boasted no long line 
of ancestry, and yet he had met, and triumphed over, the scion of a 
boasted line — had bearded the aristocrat upon the field of his fame, 
and vanquished him. This triumph was followed up, in quick suc- 
cession, with many others. He was now the cynosure of the nation, 
and the star of Randolph was waning. His disregard of Randolph's 
proposition, to withdraw from Congress and denounce the Union, 
and his success in effecting this compromise, sublimated Randolph's 
hatred, and no opportunity was permitted to pass unimproved for 
abuse of him as a politician, and as a man. 

William Lowndes, after Clay, exercised more influence in the 
House than any other man. He was a South Carolinian, and of dis- 
tinguished family. His health, at this time, was failing: it had 
always been delicate. Mr. Lowndes was comparatively a young 
man. He was remarkably tall : perhaps six feet six inches. He 



FIFTY YEARS. 239 

Stood a head and -houlders above any man in Congress. His hair 
was golden ; his complexion, clear and pale, and his eyes were deep 
blue, and very expressive. He had been elaborately educated, and 
improved by foreign travel, extensive reading, and research. As a 
belles-lettres scholar, he was superior even to Mr. Randolph. Very 
retiring and modest in his demeanor, he rarely obtruded himself upon 
the House. When he did, it seemed only to remind the House of 
something which had been forgotten by his predecessors in debate. 
Sometimes he would make a set speech. When he did, it was always 
remarkable for profound reasoning, and profound thought. He was 
suffering with disease of the lungs, and his voice was weak : so much 
so that he never attempted to elevate it above a conversational tone. 
So honest was he in his views, so learned and so unobtrusive, that he 
had witched away the heart of the House. No man was so earnestly 
h'stened to as Mr. Lowndes. His mild and persuasive manner, his 
refined and delicate deportment in debate and social intercourse cap- 
tivated everyone; and at a time when acrimonious feelings filled 
almost every breast, there was no animosity for Mr. Lowndes. His 
impression upon the nation had made him the favored candidate 
of every section for the next President ; and it is not, perhaps, saying 
too much, that had his life been spared, he, and not John Q^iincy 
Adams, would have been the President in 1824. He would have 
been to all an acceptable candidate. His talents, his virtues, his 
learning, and his broad patriotism had very much endeared him to 
the intelligence of the country. At that time these attributes were 
expected in the President, and none were acceptable without them. 
Mr. Lowndes in very early life gave evidence of future usefulness 
and distinction. His thirst for knowledge, intense application, and 
great capacity to acquire, made him conspicuous at school, and in 
college. He entered manhood already distinguished by his writings. 
While yet very young he travelled in Europe, and for the purpose of 
mental improvment. Knowledge was the wife of his heart, and he 
courted her with affectionate assiduity. An anecdote is related of him 
illustrative of his character and attainments. While in London, he 
was left alone at his hotel, where none but men of rank and distinc- 
tion visited, with a gentleman much his senior; neither knew the 
other. A social instinct, (though not very prominent in an Eng- 
lishman,) induced conversation. After a time the gentleman left the 
apartment and was returning to the street, when he encountered the 



240 THE MEMORIES OF 

Duke of Argyle. This gentleman was William Roscoe, of Liver- 
pool, and author of "The Life of Leo the Tenth." 

" I have been spending a most agreeable hour," he said to the 
Duke, " with a young American gentleman, who is the tallest, wisest, 
and best bred young man I have ever met." 

*'It must have been Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina," replied the 
Duke. *' He is such a man, I know him and I know no other like 
him. Return and let me make you his acquaintance." He did so, 
and the acquaintance then commenced, ripened into a friendship 
which endured so long as they both lived. 

Blue eyes, of a peculiar languid expression ; yellow hair, lank and 
without gloss ; with a soft sunny sort of complexion, seems ever to 
indicate physical weakness. Indeed, pale colors in all nature point 
to brief existence, want of stamina and capacity to endure. All of 
these combined in the physical organization of Mr. Lowndes, and 
served to make more conspicuous the brilliancy of his intellect. It 
has been said, consumption sublimates the mind, stealing from the 
body, etherealizing and intensifying the intellect. This was pecu- 
liarly the case in the instance of Mr. Lowndes. As the disease pro- 
gressed, attenuating and debilitating the physical man, his intellectual 
faculties grew brighter, and brighter, assuming a lucidity almost 
supernatural. At length he passed from time while yet young, leav- 
ing a -vacuum which in South Carolina has never been filled. His 
death was at a time his services were most needed, and as with Clay, 
Jackson, and Webster, his death was a national calamity. 

Conspicuous among the remarkable men of that era was Louis 
McLean, of Delaware. He belonged to the Republican school of 
politics, and was a very honest and able man. He combined very 
many most estimable traits in his character ; open and frank, with- 
out concealment ; cheerful and mild, without bitterness, and with as 
few prejudices as any public man. Yet he was consistent and firm 
in his political opinions and principles, as he was devoted and tena- 
cious in his friendships. He was extremely considerate of the feel- 
ings and prejudices of other people — had a large stock of charity 
for the foibles and follies of his friends and political antagonists. In 
social intercourse he was quite as familiar and intimate with these as 
with his political friends. Difference of political principles did not 
close his eyes to the virtues and worth of any man, and his respect 
for talent and uprightness was always manifest in his public and pri- 



FIFTY YEARS. 24 1 

vate intercourse with those who differed with him in opinion. His 
was a happy constitution, and one well fitted to win him friends. 
Personally, with the exception of Mr. Lowndes, he was perhaps the 
most popular man upon the floor of the House of Representatives. 
The influence of his character and talent was very great, and his 
geographical position added greatly to these in his efl'orts upon the 
Missouri question. His speech was widely read, and no one found 
fault with it. It was a masterly effort and added greatly to his 
extended fame. 

In the character of Mr. McLean there was a very happy combina- 
tion of gentleness with firmness. He carried this into his family, and 
its influence has made of his children a monument to his fame ; they 
have distinguished, in their characters and conduct, the name and the 
virtues of their father. It may be said of him what cannot be said 
of many distinguished men, his children were equal to the father in 
talent, usefulness, and virtue. 

The Administration of Mr. Monroe saw expire the Federal and 
Republican parties, as organized under the Administration of John 
Adams. It saw also the germ of the Democratic and Whig parties 
planted. It was a prosperous Administration, and under it the nation 
flourished like a green bay-tree. He was the last of the Presidents 
who had actively participated in the war of the Revolution. To 
other virtues and diffeffent merits, those who now aspire to the high 
distinction of the Presidency must owe their success. There must 
always be a cause for distinction. However great the abilities of a 
man or exalted his virtues, he must in some manner make a display 
of them before the public eye, or he must of necessity remain in 
obscurity. War developes more rapidly and more conspicuously the 
abilities of men than any other public employment. Gallantry and 
successful conflict presents the commander and subalterns at once 
prominently before the country; besides military fame addresses 
itself to every capacity, and strange as it may seem, there is no 
quality so popular with man and woman, too, as the art of success- 
fully killing our fellow-man, and devastating his country. It is ever 
a successful claim to public honors and political preferments. No 
fame is so lasting as a military fame. Cresar and Hannibal are 
names, though they lived two thousand years ago, familiar in the 
mouths of every one, and grow brighter as time progresses. Philip 
and his more warlike son, Alexander, are names familiar to the 
21 Q 



242 THE MEMORIES OF 

learned and illiterate, alike ; while those who adorned the walks of 
civil life with virtues, and godlike abilities, are only known to those 
who burrow in musty old books, and search out the root of civili- 
zation enjoyed by modern nations. They who fought at Cannse and 
Marathon, at Troy and at Carthage, are household names; while those 
who invented the plough and the spade, and first taught the cultiva- 
tion of the earth, the very base of civilization, are unknown — never 
thought of Such is human nature. 

The war of 1812 had developed one or two men only of high 
military genius, and the furor for military men had not then become 
a mania. Abilities for civil government were considered essential 
in him who was to be elevated to the Presidency. Indeed, it was 
not so much a warrior's fame which had controlled in the election 
of the previous Presidents, as their high intellectual reputations. 
Washington had rendered such services to the country, both as a 
military man and a civilian, that his name was the nation. He had 
been everywhere designated as the father of his country, and such 
was the public devotion, that he had only to ask it, and a despot's 
crown would have adorned his brow. John Adams, Jefferson, and 
Madison had no military record ; but in the capacity of civilians had 
rendered essential service to the cause of the Revolution. Their 
Administrations had been successful, and the public mind attributed 
this success to their abilities as statesmen, and desired to find as their 
successors, men of like minds, and similar attainments. Crawford, 
Calhoun, Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Lowndes, had all of them 
given evidences of eminent statesmanship, and the public mind 
among these was divided. At the time of the death of Lowndes, 
this mind was rapidly concentrating upon him, as more eminently 
uniting the desired qualifications than any other. 

It was about this very time that General Jackson's name began to 
attract the public as a prominent candidate. Mr. Calhoun was 
ready to retire from the contest, and it is very probable his friends 
would have united in the support of Lowndes, but he being out of the 
way, they united upon Jackson. When Jackson was first spoken 
of as a candidate, most men of intelligence viewed it as a mere joke, 
but very soon the admiration for his military fame was apparent in 
the delight manifested by the masses, when he was brought promi- 
nently forward. That thirst for military glory, and the equally 
ardent thirst to do homage to the successful military man, was dis- 



FIFTY YEARS. 243 

covered to be as innate and all-pervading with the American people, 
as with any other of the most warlike nations. Had the name of 
Jackson been brought before the people six months earlier than it 
was, he would, most assuredly, have been triumphantly elected by 
the popular vote. It would be fruitless to speculate upon what 
might have been the consequences to the country had he been then 
chosen. Besides, such is foreign to my purpose. I mean merely to 
record memories of men and things which have come under my eye 
and to my knowledge, for the last fifty years, and which I may sup- 
pose will be interesting to the general reader, and particularly to the 
young, who are just now coming into position as men and women, 
and who will constitute the controlling element in society and in the 
Government. To those of my own age, it may serve to awaken 
reminiscences of a by-gone age, and enable them to contrast the men 
and things of now and then. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FRENCH AND SPANISH TERRITORY. 

Settlers on the Tombigbee and Mississippi Rivers — La Salle — Natchez 
— Family Apportionment — The Hill Country — Hospitality — Benefit 
OF African Slavery — Capacity of the Negro — His Future. 

ABOUT the year 1777, many persons of the then colonies, fear- 
ful of the consequences of the war then commencing for the 
independence of the colonies, removed and sought a home beyond 
their limits. Some selected the Tombigbee, and others the Missis- 
sippi River, and, braving the horrors of the wilderness, made a home 
for themselves and posterity, amid the rude inhospitalies of unculti- 
vated nature. 

There were, at that time, small settlements of French and Spanish 
adventurers upon these streams, in different localities. La Salle 
descended upon Canada, and, taking possession of Louisiana in the 
name of the French king, had created among many of the chivalrous 
and adventurous spirits of France a desire to take possession of the 



244 THE MEMORIES OF 

entire country, from the rnouth of the Saint Lawrence to that of the 
Mississippi. Nova Scotia, called Acadia by its first settlers, and 
the provinces of Canada, were his already, and France desired to 
restrict the further expansion of the English colonies, now growing 
into importance along the Atlantic coast. 

The vast extent of the continent and its immense fertility, with its 
mighty rivers, its peculiar adaptation to settlement, and the yielding 
of all the necessaries and luxuries of human wants, had aroused the 
enterprise of Europe. Spain had possessed herself of South America, 
Mexico, and Cuba, the pride of the Antilles. The success of her 
scheme of colonization stimulated both England and France to push 
forward their settlements, and to foster and protect them with Gov- 
ernmental care. After some fruitless attempts, the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi had been discovered, and approached from the Gulf. The 
expedition under La Salle had failed to find it. The small colony 
brought by him for settlement upon the Mississippi, had been landed 
many leagues west of the river's mouth, and owing to disputes 
between that great and enterprising man and the officer commanding 
the two ships which had transported them across the Atlantic, they 
were mercilessly left by this officer, without protection, and almost 
without provisions, upon the coast of what is now Texas. La Salle 
had started with a small escort, by land, to find the great river. 
These men became dissatisfied, and not sharing in the adventurous 
and energetic spirit of their leader, remonstrated with him and pro- 
posed to return to their companions ; but, disregarding them, he 
pressed on in his new enterprise. In wading a small stream, one of 
the men was carried off by an alligator, and a day or so after, another 
was bitten and killed by a rattle-snake. Terror seized upon his men, 
and -all their persuasions proving fruitless, they determined to assas- 
sinate him and return. They did so, only to find the colony dis- 
persed and nowhere to be found. After many hazardous adventures 
they reached the Arkansas River, and descended it to its mouth, 
where they proposed preparing some means of ascending the Mis- 
sissippi, and thus return to Canada. Fortunately they had been 
there but a few hours, when a small boat or two, which had been 
dispatched from Canada to look after the colony so long expected, 
arrived, and, learning the unfortunate issue of the enterprise, took 
on board the party, and returned up the river. They reported the 
colony destroyed, and it was not until many years after, that it was 



FIFTY YEARS. 245 

discovered that those left on the sea-side had been found, and con- 
veyed to the Jesuit Mission, at San Antonio, where they had been 
cared for and preserved by the pious and humane missionaries. 

Subsequently a colony was located at Boloxy, on the shore of the 
lake, and thence was transferred to New Orleans. Mobile, soon 
after, was made the nucleus of another colony, and from these two 
points had proceeded the pioneers of the different settlements along 
these rivers — the Tombigbee and the Mississippi. It was to these 
settlements or posts, or their neighborhoods, that these refugees from 
the Revolutionary war in the colonies had retired. Natchez* and 
St. Francisville, on the Mississippi, and St. Stephen's and Mcintosh's 
Bluff, on the Tombigbee, were the most populous and important. 

About these, and under the auspicious protection of the Spanish 
Government, then dominant in Louisiana and Florida, commenced 
the growth of the Anglo-Norman population, which is now the 
almost entire population of the country. There proceeded from 
South Carolina, about the time mentioned above, a colony of per- 
sons which located near Natchez. They came down the Holston, 
Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers, on flat-boats; and after many 
escapes from the perils incident to the streams they navigated, and 
the hostility of the savages who dwelt along their shores, they 
reached this Canaan of their hopes. They had intended to locate at 
New Madrid. The country around was well suited for cultivation, 
being alluvial and rich, and the climate was all they could desire ; 
but they found a population mongrel and vicious, unrestrained by 
law or morals, and learning through a negro belonging to the place 
of an intended attack upon their party, for the piurpose of robbery, 
they hastily re-embarked what of their property and stock they had 
debarked. Under pretense of dropping a few miles low^r down the 
river for a more eligible site, they silently and secretly left in the 
night, and never attempted another stop until reaching the Walnut 
Hills, now Vicksburg. A few of the party concluded to remain 
here, while the larger number went on down ; some to the mouth of 
Cole's Creek, some to Natchez, and others to the cliffs known by 
the name of one of the emigrants whose party concluded to settle 
there. 

These cliffs, which are eighteen miles below Natchez, have always 
been known as Ellis* Cliffs. In their rear is a most beautiful, and 
eminently fertile country. Grants were obtained from the Spanish 



246 THE MEMORIES OF 

Government of these lands, in tracts suited to the means of each 
family. A portion was given to the husband, a portion to the wife, 
and a portion to each child of every family. These grants covered 
nearly all of that desirable region south of St. Catharine's Creek and 
west of Second Creek to the Mississippi River, and south to the 
Homochitto River. Similar grants were obtained for lands about 
the mouth, and along the banks of Cole's Creek, at and around 
Fort Adams, ten miles above the mouth of Red River, and upon the 
Bayou Pierre. The same authority donated to the emigrants lands 
about Mcintosh's Bluff, Fort St. Stephens, and along Bassett's Creek, 
in the region of the Tombigbee River. Here the lands were not so 
fertile, nor were they in such bodies as in the region of the Missis- 
sippi. The settlements did not increase and extend to the surround- 
ing country with the same rapidity as in the latter country. Many of 
those first stopping on the Tombigbee, ultimately removed to the Mis- 
sissippi. Here they encountered none of the perils or losses incident 
to the war of the Revolution. The privations of a new country they 
did, of necessity, endure, but not to the same extent that those suffer 
who are deprived of a market for the products of their labor. New 
Orleans afforded a remunerative market for all they could produce, 
and, in return, supplied them with every necessary beyond their means 
of producing at home. The soil and climate were not only auspicious 
to the production of cotton, tobacco, and indigo — then a valuable 
marketable commodity — but every facility for rearing without stint 
every variety of stock. These settlements were greatly increased by 
emigration from Pennsylvania, subsequently to the conclusion of the 
war, as well as from the Southern States. 

Very many who, in that war, had sided with the mother country 
from conscientious, or mercenary views, were compelled by public 
opinion, or by the operation of the law confiscating their property 
and banishing them from the country, to find new homes. Those, 
however, who came first had choice of locations, and most generally 
selected the best; and bringing most wealth, maintained the ascen- 
dency in this regard, and gave tone and direction to public matters 
as well as to the social organization of society. Most of them were 
men of education and high social position in the countries from 
which they came. Constant intercourse with New Orleans, and the 
education of the youth of both sexes of this region in the schools of 
that city, carried the high polish of French society into the colony. 



FIFTY YEARS. 247 

Louisiana, and especially New Orleans, was first settled by the 
nobility and gentry of France. They were men in position among 
the first of that great and glorious people. Animated with the 
ambition for high enterprise, they came in sufficient numbers to 
create a society, and to plant French manners and customs, and the 
elegance of French learning and French society, upon the banks of 
the Mississippi. 

The commercial and social intermingling of these people resulted 
in intermarriages, which very soon assimilated them in most things 
as one people, at least in feeling, sentiment and interest. From 
such a stock grew the people inhabiting the banks of the Mississippi, 
from Vicksburg to New Orleans. In 1S26, young men of talent 
and enterprise had come from Europe, and every section of the 
United States, and, giving their talents to the development of the 
country, had created a wealth, greater and more generally diffused 
than was, at that time, to be found in any other planting or farming 
community in the United States. Living almost exclusively among 
themselves, their manners and feelings were homogeneous ; and 
living, too, almost entirely upon the products of their plantations, 
independent of their market-crops, they grew rich so rapidly as to 
mock the fable of Jonah's gourd. This wealth afforded the means 
of education and travel ; these, cultivation and high mental attain- 
ments, and, with these, the elegances of refined life. The country 
was vast and fertile ; the Mississippi, flowing by their homes, was 
sublimely grand, and seemed to inspire ideas and aspirations com- 
mensurate with its own majesty in the people upon its borders. 

In no country are to be found women of more refined character, 
more beauty, or more elegance of manners, than among the planters' 
wives and daughters of the Mississippi coast. Reared in the country, 
and accustomed to exercise in the open air, in walking through the 
shady avenues of the extensive and beautifully ornamented grounds 
about the home or plantation-house ; riding on horseback along the 
river's margin, elevated upon the levee, covered with the green Ber- 
muda grass, smoothly spreading over all the ground, save the pretty 
open road, stretching through this grass, like a thread of silver in a 
a cloth of green ; with the great drab river, moving in silent majesty, 
on one side, and the extended fields of the plantation, teeming with 
the crop of cane or cotton, upon the other. Their exercise, thus 
surrounded, becomes a school, and their ideas expand and grow with 



248 THE MEMORIES OF 

the sublimity of their surroundinp;s. The health-giving exercise and 
the wonderful scene yields vigor both to mind and body. Nor is 
this scene, or its effects, greater in the development of mind and 
body than that of the hill-country of the river-counties of Mississippi. 

These hills are peculiar. They are drift, thrown upon the primi- 
tive formation by some natural convulsion, and usually extend some 
twelve or fifteen miles into the interior. They consist of a rich, 
marly loam, and, when in a state of nature were clothed to their 
summits with the wild cane, dense and unusually large, a forest of 
magnolia, black walnut, immense oaks, and tulip or poplar-trees, 
with gigantic vines of the wild grape climbing and overtopping the 
tallest of these forest monarchs. Here among these picturesque hills 
and glorious woods, the emigrants fixed their homes, and here grew 
their posterity surrounding themselves with wealth, comforts, and all 
the luxuries and elegances of an elevated civilization. Surrounded 
in these homes with domestic slaves reared in them, and about them, 
who came at their bidding, and went when told, but who were care- 
fully regarded, sustained, and protected, and who felt their family 
identity, and were happy, served affectionately, and with willing 
alacrity, the master and his household. In the midst of scenes and 
circumstances like these grew women in all that constitutes nobility 
of soul and sentiment, delicacy, intelligence, and refined purity, 
superior to any it has ever been my fortune to meet on earth. 

Here in these palatial homes was the hospitality of princes. It 
was not the hospitality of pride or ostentation, but of the heart ; the 
welcome which the soul ungrudgingly gives, and which delights and 
refines the receiver. It is the welcome of a refined humanity, 
untainted with selfishness, and felt as a humane and duly bound 
tribute to civilization and Christianity ; such hospitality as can only 
belong to the social organization which had obtained in the commu- 
nity from its advent upon this great country. 

The independence of the planter's pursuit, the institution of 
domestic slavery, and the form and spirit of the Government, all 
conduce to this. The mind is untrammelled and the soul is inde- 
pendent, because subservient neither to the tyrannical exactions of 
unscrupulous authority, or the more debasing servility of dependence 
upon the capricious whims of petty officials, or a monied aristocracy. 
Independently possessing the soil and the labor for its cultivation, 
with only the care necessary to the comforts and necessities of this 



FIFTY YEARS. 249 

labor, superadded to those of a family, they were without the neces- 
sity of soliciting or courting favors from any one, or pandering to 
the ignorant caprices of a labor beyond their control. Independence 
of means is the surest guarantee for independence of character. 
Where this is found, most private and most public virtues always 
accompany it. Truth, sincerity, all the cardinal virtues are fos- 
tered most where there is most independence. This takes away the 
source of all corruption, all temptation. This seeks dependence, 
and victimizes its creatures to every purpose of corruption and 
meanness. 

Under the influences of the institutions of the South, as they were, 
there was little of the servile meanness so predominant where they 
were not, and the lofty and chivalrous character of the Southern 
people was greatly owing to these institutions, and the habits of the 
people growing out of them. The slave was a class below all others. 
His master was his protector and friend ; he supplied his wants and 
redressed his wrongs, and it was a point of honor as well as duty to 
do so ; he was assured of his care and protection, and felt no 
humility at his condition. The white man, without means, was 
reminded that, though poor, he was above the slave, and was stimu- 
lated with the pride of position as contrasted with that of the slave ; 
his political, legal, and social rights were unrestrained and equal 
with those of the wealthiest. This was the only distinction between 
him and the wealthiest in the land, and this wealth conferred no 
exclusive privilege, and its acquisition was open to his energy and 
enterprise, and he gloried in his independence. He could acquire 
and enjoy without dependence, and his pride and ambition were 
alike stimulated to the emulation of fhose who shared most fortune's 
favors. 

The beneficial influences of the institution of African slavery were 
not only apparent in the independent and honorable bearing and 
conduct of the Southern people, growing from the habit of command, 
and involuntary contrast of condition, but upon the material advance- 
ment and progress of the country. The product of slave labor, when 
directed by a higher intelligence than his own, is enormous, and was 
the basis of the extended and wealth -creating commerce of the 
entire country. These products could be obtained in no other 
manner, and' without this labor, are lost to the world. The African 
negro, in osseous and muscular developments, and in all the essentials 



250 THE MEMORIES OF 

for labor, is quite equal to those of the white race ; in his cerebral, 
greatly inferior. The capacities of his brain are limited and incapable 
of cultivation beyond a certain point. His moral man is as feeble and 
unteachable as his mental. He cannot be educated to the capacity 
of self-government, nor to the formation and conducting of civil 
government to the extent of humanizing and controlling by salutary 
lav/s a people aggregated into communities. He learns by example 
which he imitates, so long as the exampler is present before him ; 
but this imitation never hardens to fixed views or habits, indicating 
the design of Providence, that these physical capacities should be 
directed and appropriated for good, by an intelligence beyond the 
mental reach of the negro. 

Why is this so ? In the wisdom and economy of creation every 
created thing represents a design for a use. The soil and climate of 
the tropical and semi-tropical regions of the earth produce and 
mature all, or very nearly all of the necessaries and luxuries of human 
life. But human beings of different races and different capacities 
fill up the whole earth. The capacity to build a fire and fabricate 
clothing is given only to man. Was the element of fire and the 
material for clothing given for any but man's use? This enables him 
to inhabit every clime. But the capacity to produce all the neces- 
saries and luxuries of life is given only to a certain portion of 
the earth's surface ; and its peculiar motions give the fructifying 
influences of the sun only to the middle belt of the planet. The 
use of this organization is evidenced in the production of this belt, 
and these productions must be the result of intelligently directed 
labor. 

The peculiarity of the physical organization of the white man 
makes it impossible for him to labor healthfully and efficiently for 
the greatest development of this favored region. Yet his wants 
demand the yield and tribute of this region. His inventive capacity 
evolved sugar from the wild canes of the tropics, than which nothing 
is more essential to his necessities, save the cereals and clothing. 
He fabricated clothing from the tropical grass and tropical cotton, 
found the uses of cassia, pimento, the dye woods, and the thousand 
other tropical products which contribute to comfort, necessity, and 
luxury ; advancing human happiness, human progress, and human 
civilization. 

The black man's organization is radically different. He was 



FIFTY YEARS. 25I 

formed especially to live and labor in these tropical and semi-tropi- 
cal regions of the earth; but he is naturally indolent, his wants are 
few, and nature unaided supplies them. He is uninventive, and has 
always, from creation down, lived amid these plants without the 
genius to discover, or the skill and industry to develope their uses. 
That they are used, and contribute to human health and human neces- 
sities, is abundant evidence of Divine design in their creation. 

The black man's labor, then, and the white man's intelligence are 
necessary to the production and fabrication, for human use, of these 
provisions of Providence. This labor the black man will not yield 
without compulsion. He' is eminently useful under this compulsion, 
and eminently useless, even to himself, without it. That he was 
designed to obey this authority, and to be most happy when and 
where he was most useful, is apparent in his mental and moral organi- 
zation. By moral I mean those functions of the nervous system 
which bring us in relation with the external world. He aspires to 
nothing but the gratification of his passions, and the indulgence of 
his indolence. He only feels the oppression of slavery in being 
compelled to work, and none of the moral degradation incident to 
servility in the higher or superior races. He is, consequently, more 
happy, and better contented in this, than in any other condition of 
life. His morals, his bodily comforts, and his status as a man, attain 
to an elevation in this condition known to his race in no other. 

All the results of his condition react upon the superior race, hold- 
ing him in the condition designed for him by his Creator, producing 
results to human progress all over the world, known to result in an 
equal ratio from no other cause. The institution has passed away, 
and very soon all its consequences will cease to be visible in the 
character of the Southern people. The plantation will dwindle to 
the truck-patch, the planter will sink into the grave, and his offspring 
will degenerate into hucksters and petty traders, and become as 
mean and contemptible as the Puritan Yankee. 

In the two hundred years of African slavery the world's progress 
was greater in the arts and sciences, and in all the appliances promo- 
tive of intelligence and human happiness, than in any period of his- 
torical time, of five centuries. Why ? Because the labor was per- 
formed by the man formed for labor and incapable of thinking, and 
releasing the man formed to think, direct, and invent, from labor, 
other than labor of thought. This influence was felt ovet the civil- 



252 THE MEMORIES OF 

ized world. The productions of the tropics were demanded by the 
higher civilization. Men forgot to clothe themselves in skins when 
they could do so in cloth. As commerce extended her flight, bear- 
ing these rich creations of labor, elaborated by intelligence, civiliza- 
tion went with her, expanding the mind, enlarging the wants, and 
prompting progress in all with whom she communicated. Its influ- 
ence was first felt from the Antilles, extending to the United States. 
In proportion to the increase of these products was the increase of 
commerce, wealth, intelligence, and power. Compare the statistics 
of production by slave-labor with the increase of commerce, and they 
go hand in hand. As the slaVe came down from the grain-growing 
region to the cotton and sugar region, the amount of his labor's 
product entering into commerce increased four-fold. The inventions 
of Whitney and Arkwright cheapened the fabric of cotton so much as 
to bring it within the reach of the poorest, and availed the world in 
all the uses of cloth. 

The shipping and manufacturing interests of England grew ; those 
of the United States, from nothing, in a few years were great rivals 
of the mother country, and very soon surpassed her in commercial 
tonnage. Every interest prospered with the prosperity of the planter 
of the Southern States. His class has passed away ; the weeds 
blacken where the chaste, white cotton beautified his fields ; his slave 
is a freedman — a constitution-maker — a ruler set up by a beastly 
fanaticism to control his master, and to degrade and destroy his 
country. 

This must bear its legitimate fruit. It is the beginning of the end 
of the negro upon this continent. Two races with the same civil, 
political and social privileges cannot long exist in harmony together. 
The struggle for supremacy will come, and with it a war of races — 
then God have mercy on the weaker ! The mild compulsion which 
stimulated his labor is withdrawn, and with it the care and protec- 
tion which alone preserved him. He works no more ; his day of 
Jubilee has come ; he must be a power in the land. Infatuated crea- 
ture ! I pity you from my heart. You cannot see or calculate the 
inevitable destiny now fixed for your race. You cannot see the vile 
uses you are made to subserve for a time, or deem that those who 
now appear your conservators, are but preparing your funeral pyre. 



FIFTY YEARS. 253 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE NATCHEZ TRADITIONS. 

Natchez — MizEziBBEE; or. The Parent of Many Waters — Indian Mounds 
— The Child OF the Sun — Treatment of the Females — Poetic Mar- 
riages—Unchaste Maids and Pure Wives — Walking Archives — The 
Profane Fire— Alahoplechia — Ovelape — The Chief with a Beard. 

THE little city of Natchez is built upon a bluff some three hun- 
dred feet in elevation above the Mississippi River, and imme- 
diately upon its brink. It receives its name from a tribe of Indians 
once resident in the country ; and who were much further advanced 
in civilization than their more warlike neighbors, the Choctaws and 
the Chickasaws. The country around is hilly and beautiful, fertile 
and salubrious. The population was intelligent and refined, and was 
remarkable for having more wealth than any community outside of 
a large city, in the United States, of the same amount of population. 
The town of Natchez (for, properly speaking, it is no more) consists 
of some three or four thousand inhabitants, and has not increased to 
any considerable extent, for many years. 

Beyond the river, in Louisiana, is an alluvial plain extending for 
fifty miles, through which meander many small streams, or bayous, 
as they are termed in the language of the country. Upon most of 
these the surface of the soil is slightly elevated above the plane of 
the swamp, and is remarkably fertile. Most of these were, at the 
commencement of the late war, in a high state of cultivation as cotton 
plantations. As in many other places, the river here has changed 
its bed by cutting off a large bend immediately opposite the town, 
creating what is known as Lake Concordia. This lake was formerly 
the bed of the river, and describes almost a complete circle of some 
twelve miles in diameter. On both sides of this lake beautiful plan- 
tations, with splendid improvements, presented a view from the 
bluff at Natchez extremely picturesque when covered with luxuriant 
crops of corn and cotton. The fertility of the soil is such that these 
crops are immensely heavy ; and when the cotton-plant has matured 
its fruit, and the pent-up lint in the large conical balls has burst 
them open, exposing their white treasure swelling out to meet the 
22 



254 THE MEMORIES OF 

sun's warm rays, and the parent stock to the first frost of autumn has 
thrown off her foliage, and all these broad fields are one sheet of 
lovely white, as far as the eye can view — the scene is lovely beyond 
description ; and when the same rich scene was presented extending 
along the banks of the great river, with the magnificent steamers 
resting at the wharf below, and others cleaving the current in proud 
defiance of the mighty volume of hurrying waters — the splendor 
and magnificence of the whole sublimated the feelings as we viewed 
it in wonder. 

The river, the bluff, and the lake are there ; but waste and desola- 
tion frown on these, and the fat earth's rich fruits are yielded no 
more. Fanaticism's hot breath has breathed upon it, and war's red 
hand (her legitimate offspring) has stricken down the laborer ; tillage 
has ceased, and gaunt poverty and hungry want only are left in her 
train. 

When the great La Salle moored his little fleet at the foot of this 
bluff, ascended to its summit, and looked over this then forest-clad 
plain, did he contemplate the coming future of this beautiful dis- 
covery of his genius and enterprise ? When he looked upon the 
blue smoke curling above the tall tree-tops along the lake, in the far 
distance, as it ascended from the wigwams of the Natchez, the wild 
denizens of this interminable forest, did his prophetic eye perceive 
these lovely fields, happy homes, and prosperous people, who came 
after him to make an Eden of this chosen spot of all the earth ? and 
did it stretch on to contemplate the ruin and desolation which over- 
spreads it now ? How blest is man that he sees not beyond to-day ! 

Here he first met the Natchez, and viewed with wonder the flat 
heads and soft, gazelle eyes of this strange people. They welcomed 
his coming, and tendered him and his people a home. From them 
he learned the extent of the great river below, and that it was lost in 
the great water that was without limit and had no end. These 
Indians, according to their traditions, had once inhabited, as a mighty 
nation, the country extending from near the city of Mexico to the 
Rio Grande, and were subjects of the Aztec empire of Mexico. 
They had been persecuted and oppressed, and determined, in grand 
council, to abandon the country and seek a home beyond the Mize- 
zibbee, or Parent-of-many-waters, which the word signifies. 

Their exodus commenced in a body. They were many days in 
assembling upon the east bank of the Rio Grande ; and thence com- 



FIFTYYEARS. 255 

menced their long march. They abandoned their homes and the 
graves of their ancestors for a new one in the lovely region they 
found on the hills extending from the mouth of the Yazoo to Baton 
Rouge. Their principal town and seat of empire was located eleven 
miles below Natchez, on the banks of Second Creek, two miles from 
the Mississippi River. It is a delightful spot of high table-land, with 
a small strip of level low-land immediately upon the margin of the 
dimpling little stream of sweet water. Upon this flat they erected 
the great mound for their temple of the Sun, and the depository of 
the holy fire, so sacred in their worship. At each point of the com- 
pass they erected smaller mounds for the residences of their chief, or 
child of the Sun, and his ministers of state. In the great temple upon 
the principal mound they deposited the fire of holiness, which they 
had borne unextinguished from the deserted temple in Mexico, and 
began to build their village. Parties went forth to establish other 
villages, and before a great while they were located in happy homes 
in a land of abundance. They formed treaties of amity with their 
powerful but peaceable neighbors, the Choctaws, and ere long with 
the Chickasaws and other minor tribes, east, and below them, on the 
river, the Tunicas, Houmas, and others ; for the country abounded 
with little bands, insignificant and powerless. 

These Indians revered, as more than mortal, their great chief, 
whom they called the child of the Sun. They had a tradition that 
when they were a great nation, in Mexico, they were divided into 
parties by feuds among their chiefs, and all their power to resist the 
aggressions of their enemies was lost; consequently they had fallen 
under the power of the Aztecs, who dominated them, and destroyed 
many of their people. Upon one occasion, when a common enemy 
and a common suffering had made them forget their quarrels, they 
were assembled for council. Suddenly there appeared in their midst 
a white man and woman, surrounded with a halo of light coming 
directly from the sun. They were all silent with awe when this 
man spoke, and with such authority as to make every chief tremble 
with fear. They bowed to him with reverence, and he professing 
to be weary with his long journey, they conducted him with his wife 
to a lodge, and bade them repose and be rested. The chiefs, in the 
darkness of the night and in silence, assembled, while the celestial 
pair slept, conscious of security. After long and close council, they 
determined to proffer the supreme authority of the nation to this man, 



256 THE MEMORIES OF 

sent to them by the sun. When this determination had been reached, 
the chiefs, in a body, repaired to the house occupied by their mys- 
terious visitors and, arousing them from sleep, they formally tendered 
to the man the crown and supreme authority over the chiefs, all their 
villages, and all their people. At first he refused, asserting that he 
knew their hearts ; they carried hatred of one another, and that they 
would come to hate him ; then they would disobey him, and this 
would be death to all the Natchez. Finally yielding to the impor- 
tunities and earnestly repeated protestations of a determination to 
obey him and follow his counsels implicitly, he agreed to accept the 
crown upon certain conditions. These were : first and paramount, 
that the Natchez should abandon their homes and country, and fol- 
low him to a new home which he would show them ; and that they 
should live and conform strictly to the laws he would establish. 
The principal of these were : the sovereign of Natchez should always 
and forever be of his race, and that if he had sons and daughters, 
they should not be permitted to intermarry with each other, but only 
with the people of the Natchez. The first-born of his sons should 
be his successor, and then the son of his eldest daughter, and should 
he have no daughter, then the son of his eldest sister, or in default 
of such an heir, then the eldest son of the nearest female relative of 
the sovereign, and so in perpetuity. 

So soon as he was inaugurated chief and supreme ruler, he went 
out in the midst of the assembled multitude and called down in their 
presence fire from the sun ; blessed it and made it holy. He created 
a guard of eight men, made them priests and gave them charge of the 
fire, and bid them, under pain of death, to preserve and keep alive 
this holy fire. They must tend it day and night and feed it with 
walnut wood, and in their charge it went before the moving host to 
where he had promised they should find a new and better home than 
the one they were leaving. 

Another tradition says, they were aiders of the Spaniards in the 
conquest of Mexico, and that these became as great persecutors of 
their people as the Aztecs. But from many of their traditions con- 
nected with their new home which extended back far beyond the 
conquest of Mexico, it is thought by historians that this tradition 
alludes to some other war in which they took part against their 
oppressors. They were remarkable for their size and symmetry of 
form of their men ; but like all the race, they made slaves of their 



FIFTY YEARS. 257 

women, imposing every burden from the cultivation of their fields to 
the duties of the household — the carrying of heavy burdens and the 
securing of fuel for winter. These labors served to disfigure and 
make their women to appear prematurely aged and worn, and they 
seemed an inferior race when compared with the men. 

The laws imposed by their chief of the sun were strictly obeyed. 
They compelled the telling of truth on all occasions ; never to kill, 
but in self-defence; never to steal, and to preserve inviolate the 
marriage-vow. The marriage ceremony was poetic and impressive. 
No girl ever dreamed of disobeying her parents in the choice of a 
husband ; nor was elopement ever heard of among them ; nor did 
the young man presume to thrust himself upon a family to whom, or 
to any member of whom, he was not acceptable. But when the mar- 
riage was agreeable to the families of both parties and was conse- 
quently determined upon, the head of the family of the bride went 
with her and her whole family to the house of the bridegroom, who 
there stood with all his family around him, when the old man of 
the bridegroom's family welcomed them, by asking : " Is it thou? " 
"Yes," answered the other ancient. "Sit down," continued the 
other. Immediately all were seated, and a profound silence for many 
minutes ensued. Then the eldest man of the party bid the groom 
and bride to stand up, when he addressed them in a speech in which 
he recapitulated all the duties of man and wife ; informed them of 
the obligations they were assuming, and then concluded with a lec- 
ture of advice as to their future lives. 

When this ceremony was concluded, the father of the bridegroom 
handed to his son the present he was to make to the family of the 
bride. Then the father of bride stepped up to the side of his 
daughter, when the groom said to the bride : "Wilt thou have me 
for thy husband?" The bride answered: "With all my heart; 
love me as I will love thee ; for thou art my only love for all my 
life." Then holding the gift above her head, the groom said : "I 
love thee ; therefore I take thee for my wife, and this is the present 
with which I buy thee," and then he handed the present to her 
parents. Upon his head he wore a tuft of feathers, and in his hand 
a bow, emblematic of authority and protection. The bride held in 
one hand a green twig of the laurel-tree, and in the other an ear of 
com — the twig indicated she would preserve her fame ever fair and 
sweet as the laurel leaf; the com was to represent her capacity to grow 
22* R 



258 THEMEMORIESOF 

it and prepare it for his food, and to fulfil all the duties of a faithful 
wife. These ceremonies completed, the bride dropped the ear of 
corn which she held in her right hand, and tendered that hand to 
the bridegroom, who took it and said : "I am thy husband." She 
replied : "I am thy wife." The bridegroom then went round and 
gave his hand to every member of the family of his wife. He then 
took his bride by the arm and led her around and she took the right 
~ hand of all the family of the bridegroom. This done, he walked 
with her to his bed, and said : "This is our bed, keep it undefiled." 

There obtained among these primitive beings a most curious and 
anost disgusting custom. The young marriageable females were per- 
mitted to prostitute themselves for gain, in order to provide a mar- 
riage portion ; and she who could thus enrich herself was the most 
distinguished and the most sought. But after marriage, she was 
compelled to purity, both by their laws and by public sentiment ;. 
and in all the intercourse of the French with them, no instance of 
infidelity was ever known in a wife. 

The great sun was indeed their Lycurgus. If before his advent 
among them they had any laws, these had become obsolete, and his 
edicts adopted universally. Their traditions represent him as living 
to extreme old age, seeing his desendants of the fourth generation. 
These were all little suns, and constituted the nobility of their nation, 
which extended at one time to the country above, as far as St. Louis 
r\ and across to the Wabash. These traditions were carefully kept. 
Every two years there were selected from the most intelligent boys 
of the nation ten, to whom these traditions were care/ully taught by 
the depositories of them who had kept them best for the greatest 
time. They were careful to exact that no word or fact should be 
withheld, and this lesson was daily taught until the boy was a man, 
and every legend a familiar memory. These he was compelled to 
repeat daily lest the memory should rust, and for this purpose they 
went forth to all the villages repeating all of these legends to all the 
people. 

There were others selected in like manner to whom the laws were 
taught as the traditions, and in like manner these were taught the 
people. In every community there was a little sun to administer 
these laws, and every complaint was submitted to him, and great 
ceremony was observed at every trial, especially criminal trials. The 
judge, or little sun, purified himself in the forest, imploring the 



FIFTY YEARS. 259 

enlightenment of the Good Spirit, and purging away the influence 
of bad spirits by his purification ; and when he felt himself a fitted 
tabernacle of pure justice, he came for\vard and rendered his judg- 
ment in the presence of all the villagers of his jurisdiction, whose 
attention was compulsory. — ■ 

It was one of the laws established in the beginning of the reign 
of the Great Sun, that his posterity should not marry inter se, but 
only with the common people of the nation. This custom was 
expelling the pure blood of royalty more and more every generation, 
and long after the arrival of the Natchez upon the Mississippi, the 
great and little suns were apparently of the pure blood of the red 
man. Their traditions, however, preserved the history of every 
cross, and when Lasalle found these at Natchez and the White Apple 
village, nearly every one could boast of relationship to the Great Sun. 
At that time they had diminished to an insignificant power, and were 
overawed by their more numerous and more powerful neighbors, the 
Choctaws and Muscagees or Alabamas. Their legends recorded 
this constant decline, but assigned no reason for it. They could now 
not bring more than two thousand warriors into the field. Gayar^ ')'^ 
says not more than six hundred ; but those contemporaneous with I 
planting the colony of Orleans say, some two thousand, some more, 
and some estimate them as low as the number stated in that admira- 
ble history of Louisiana whose author is so uniformly correct. And 
here let me acknowledge my obligations to that accomplished his- 
torian, and no less accomplished gentleman, for most of the facts 
here stated, and if I have used his own language in portraying them 
to a great extent, it was because it was so pure and beautiful I could 
not resist it, the excuse the Brazilian gave for stealing the diamond. 

With regard to these people, their mode of life was that of most 
of the other tribes. They lived principally by the chase ; their only 
cultivation was the Indian corn, pumpkins, and a species of wild 
beans or peas, perfectly black, until their intercourse with the French, 
and then they only added a few of the coarser vegetables. From 
whom they derived the pumpkin is not known. 

Their wars were not more frequent or more destructive than those 
of their neighbors; and their general habits were the same. Still 
they were going on to decay, and they contemplated with stolid 
calmness their coming extinction. They felt it a destiny not to be 
averted or avoided by anything they could do, and were content 



260 THE MEMORIES OF 

with the excuse of folly for all its errors and sins. // is the will of 
God, or the Great Spirit, as the Indian phrases it. They were more 
enlightened than their neighbors, as historians have stated, because, 
I suppose, they were more superstitious. They bowed to fate, the 
attribute of superstition everywhere, and made no effort at relief 
from the causes of decay. 

Their religion, like all the aborigines of the continent, consisted 
in the worship of the Great Spirit typified in the sun, to whom was 
addressed their prayers and all their devotion. The sacred fire was 
the emblem on earth ; their Great Sun had brought it from the sun 
and given it as holy to them to be forever preserved and propitiated 
by watching and prayer. In every village and settlement they 
erected mounds upon which the temple of the sun was built, and 
where was deposited the sacred fire. Mounds, too, were built for 
burying-places, and in these are now to be found in great abundance 
the flat heads and other bones of this remarkable people. 

r"" They had a tradition that an evil spirit was always tempting them 
to violate the laws, and the regulations of their religious belief 
That at one time he had so nearly extinguished the holy fire in their 
temples, and the love of the sun in their hearts, that the Great Spirit 
came and fought with them against him, until finally he was con- 
quered and chained in a deep cave, whence he still continued to 
send out little devils to tempt and torment their people. It was these 
/ who brought disease and death ; these who tempted to lie, steal, and 
kill ; disobedience in their wives when they refused to perform their 
duties or became bellicose, as wives sometimes will, of every people 
on earth. It was a trite saying, shut up the cave in your heart and 
smother or put out the bad spirit. It was a belief that these imps or 
little devils found much more easy access to the caves in the hearts 
of women than into those of men, and that they encouraged them 
to come and nestle there. Is the belief alone the Indian's? There 
are some within my knowledge whose experience at home might 
'readily yield belief to this faith of the savage. 

p- Their traditions, too, told them of the great waters coming over 
■' all the land, and destroying all the inhabitants except those who had 
I boats ; and that the latter were carried away by the waters and left by 
; them on all the land that was permitted again to come above the 
•' waters; and that by that means people were planted everywhere. 
These traditions are quite as rational as most of the speculations as 



FIFTY YEARS. 26l 

to how the earth was populated, especially that which we learn in 
the cradle, of Adam and Eve's mission. 

It was death, by their law, to permit the holy fire to become 
extinguished in the temples. To prevent such a calamity, it was pre- 
served in two temples at different points ; when accidentally extin- 
guished in one, it was to be obtained from the other ; but not 
peacefully. The keepers must resist and blood must be spilt in order 
to obtain it. Soon after they became acquainted with the French, 
the fire was extinguished in the great temple at the White Apple 
village by the lazy watcher. Knowing his fate, he stealthily lighted 
it from profane fire. Great misfortunes following this, and shortly 
thereafter the loss of the holy fire in the other temple near the Grind- 
stone ford, on the Bayou Pierre, in Claiborne County, Mississippi, 
they sought after the legal and holy manner to procure fire from 
the White Apple village. Yet the calamities continued. The watch 
who had suffered the fire to fail in the first temple, conscience smit- 
ten, confessed his sin and paid its penalty. 

They now had only profane fire, and the whole nation was in the 
agonies of despair. The cause of all their calamities was now no 
longer a secret. They extinguished the profane fire, and in prayer, 
fasting, and continued oblations, they propitiated the sun to send 
them fire that was holy, to protect and preserve them. It was the 
folly of ignorance and superstition, and availed nothing ; but, like all 
prayer, was considered a pious duty, though nothing was ever known 
to result therefrom, and nature moved steadily and undeviatingly 
forward in obedience to the fixed, immutable, and eternal laws 
affirmed by the all -wise Creator. There was gloom upon every 
brow and despair in every heart. The curse pronounced by the first 
Great Sun had come — destruction and death to all the Natchez — 
because of the extinction of the holy fire. At length a tree was 
stricken by lightning near the White Apple village temple, and set 
on fire. The men of the temple saw the answer to their prayers in 
this, and hastened to re-kindle the holy flame from this fire, so 
miraculously sent them from heaven. It was to them a miracle, 
because, though perfectly in obedience to natural laws, they did not 
comprehend them, and like unto all people under similar circum- 
stances, all in nature is a miracle which they do not understand, and 
cannot satisfactorily explain. But there was no efficiency found in 
this, and the trouble went forward. 



262 . THE MEMORIES OF 

The French had come among them, and taught them the value and 
corrupting influence of money. Boats had ascended and descended 
the Great River, and communication, through this channel, had been 
established with Canada. They were grasping, by degrees, the lands, 
building forts and peopling the country. They had introduced the 
black man, and the wiser of the Natchez saw in the future the doom 
of their race. They saw the feuds fomented between the numerous 
tribes along the coast of the Mississippi by the French, and the 
destruction of these by bloody wars. They saw, too, to offend the 
French was sure to bring destruction upon the offending party. 
Their neighbors were made, through French influence, to fall upon 
and destroy them. The Chickasaws and Choctaws — great nations, 
having multitudes of warriors — were under the dominion of these 
pale-faced intruders, and they feared they might be turned upon 
them in an unsuspecting hour. 

• There was among the Natchez a mighty chief and warrior. He 
was of great stature and fame, being seven feet high and powerfully 
proportioned. He had a large beard, and was called the chief of 
the Beard, because he was the only man of all the tribe who had this 
facial ornament or incumbrance. He was a mighty warrior and Avas 
wise in counsel. He believed he saw great evil to the Natchez in the 
increase of the French and the extension of French power. He 
knew, and told his people, this was the foreboding of the extinction 
of the holy fire. He went forth with the chief of the Walnut Hills, 
named Alahoplechia, and the chief of the White Clay, Oyelape, 
among their neighbors of other tribes, the Chicasaws and Choctaws, 
jireaching a crusade against the French ; urging them to unite with 
the Natchez, the Homochittas, and the Alabamas, and to attack and 
destroy the last man of the French settlements at Mobile, Boloxy, 
Ship Island, and New Orleans, as they were mischievous intruders 
from across the Salt Lake, whence they were yearly bringing their 
people to rob them of their homes and appropriate them. 

There had come to them red men from the Wabash and Musk- 
ingum, who bore to them the sad news of the encroachments of the 
pale-faces upon their people and their hunting-grounds. "Soon," 
said the bearded chief, who was the leading spirit of the mission, 
"these white faces will meet along the Great River. They will forget 
the arrow of truth and the tomahawk of justice. They will only know 
power and oppression. Then they will be mighty as the hurricane 



FIFTY YEARS. 263 

when the Great Sun hides his face in wrath and the tempest tears the 
forest. Who can resist him then ? The holy fire has been sent again 
from heaven, from the Great Spirit, our God, the Great Sun, It tells 
us to save our people from this fearful destruction which comes with 
the white man. These pale-faces are cunning ; they must not know 
of our union. We must not counsel long, or they will learn our inten- 
tions. We must strike at once. The Choctaws must strike at Mobile. 
At the same moment, Homochittas, Boloxies, and Homas, you must 
strike at Boloxi. The Chickasaws and the Natchez will fall upon New 
Orleans and Rosalie." (The latter is the Indian name for what is 
now Natchez.) His advice was startling, but unheeded. In order 
to precipitate a war, on his return with the chiefs who accompanied 
him and two warriors, they murdered a trading-party of French, at 
the hills where is now Warrenton, in Warren County, Mississippi. 

This murder was communicated to the French who, under Bien- 
ville, were sent by Cordelac, then Governor of Louisiana, to take 
revenge, by waging war upon the Natchez. Bienville was hated by 
Cordelac, because he had refused the hand of his daughter, formally 
tendered him by her father. He only gave the young and sagacious 
commander a small force with which to wage this war — such an one 
as would have been overwhelmed at once had he attempted open 
field movements. Knowing this, he proceeded to an island opposite 
the village of the Tunicas, where he entrenched himself and invited 
a conference. Three spies were sent by the Natchez to reconnoitre ; 
but they were baffled by Bienville with superior cunning. They were 
sent back as not the equals of Bienville, and with a message to the 
Great Sun that he must come with his chiefs, that he desired to estab- 
lish trading-posts among them, and would only treat with the first in 
authority. They came with a consciousness that the French were 
ignorant of these murders, and were immediately arrested and ironed. 
Bienville told them at once of the murder, and of his determination 
to have the murderers and to punish them. He had the Great Sun, 
the Stung Serpent, and the Little Sun. The latter was sent to bring 
the heads of the murderers, and he returned with three heads ; but 
Bienville, after examining these, told the chiefs they had treach- 
erously deceived him, and that those were not the heads of the mur- 
derers. After a night's consultation they concluded it was impossible 
to deceive him, and in the morning confessed the whole truth, pro- 
posing to send Stung Serpent to bring the real murderers. But knowing 



264 THE MEMORIES OF 

the wily character of this chief and his influence with his tribe, he 
was not permitted to go. The young Sun was dispatched, and suc- 
ceeded in bringing the chief of the Beard and the chief of the Wal- 
nut Hills, with the two warriors ; but Oyelape had fled and could not 
be had. He had probed to the truth of the French expedition ; and 
being guilty, cunningly and wisely made his escape. 

The death sentence was passed upon these, and the two warriors 
were shot at once; but the two chiefs were reserved for execution to 
another day. Upon the sentence being communicated to them they 
commenced to chant the death-song of their people, which they con- 
tinued to do throughout all the time, night and day, until led forth 
for execution. 

The Great Sun, Stung Serpent, his brother, and all the other 
Indians were brought out to witness the execution. When the two 
condemned chiefs were brought forward, these witnesses of their 
death sang the death-song ; but the chief of the Beard looked sternly 
at them, and defiantly at the executioners ; and taking his positon, 
turned to his people and, addressing them, said : 

" ' Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. A child is born 
to them of the race of their Suns. A boy is born with a beard on 
his chin. The prodigy still works on from generation to generation.' 
So sang the warriors of my tribe when I sprang from my mother's 
womb, and the shrill cry of the eagle, in the heavens, was heard in 
joyful response. Hardly fifteen summers had passed over my head 
when my beard had grown long and glossy. I looked around, and 
saw I was the only red man that had this awful mark on his face, and 
I interrogated my mother and she said : 

" ' Son of the chiefs of the Beard, 
Thou shalt know the mystery 
In which thy curious eye wishes to pry, 
When thy beard from black becomes red.' 

"Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! A hunter is born 
to them — a hunter of the race of the Suns. Ask of the bears, of the 
l)ufl"aloes, of the tigers, and of the swift-footed deer, whose arrows 
they fear most ! They tremble and cower when the footstep of the 
hunter with the beard on his chin is heard on tlie heath. But I was 
born with brains in my head as well as a beard on my chin, and I 
]»ondered on my mother's words. One day, when a panther which 



FIFTY YEARS. 265 

I slaughtered had torn my breast, I painted my beard with my own 
blood, and I stood smiling before her. She said nothing ; but her 
eye gleamed with wild delight, and she took me to the temple when, 
standing by the sacred fire, she thus sang to me : 

" ' Son of the chiefs of the Beard, 
Thou shalt know the mystery, 
Since, true to thy nature, with thine own blood 
Thy black beard thou hast turned to red.' 

" 'Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez; for a mighty 
chief, worthy of the race of their Suns, has been born to them in thee, 
my son — a noble chief with .a beard on his chin. Listen to the 
explanation of this prodigy. In days of old a Natchez maid of the 
race of their Suns was on a visit to the Mobelians. There she soon 
loved the youthful chief of that nation, and her wedding-day was 
nigh, when there came from the big Salt Lake on the south a host of 
bearded men^ who sacked the town, slew the red chief with their thun- 
der, and one of those accursed evil spirits used violence to the maid 
when her lover's corpse was hardly cold in death. She found in sor- 
row her way back to the Natchez hills, where she became a mother, 
and lo ! the boy had a beard on his chin, and when he grew old 
enough to understand- his mother's words she whispered in his ear : 

" ' Son of the chiefs of the Beard, 
Born from a bloody day, 
Bloody be thy hand, and bloody be thy life 
Until thy black beard with blood becomes red.' 

" Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. In my first ances- 
tor a long line of the first of hunters, chiefs, and warriors of the race 
of their Suns had been born to them with beards on their chins. 
What chase was ever unsuccessful over which they presided ? When 
they spoke in the council of the wise men of the nation, did it not 
always turn out that their advice, whether adopted or rejected, was 
the best in the end ? In what battle were they ever defeated ? When 
were they known to be worn out with fatigue — with hardship, 
hunger or thirst, heat or cold, either on land or water ? Who ever 
could stem as they the rushing current of the Father of rivers ? Who 
can count the number of scalps which they brought from distant 
expeditions? Their names have always been famous in the wigwams 
23 



266 THE MEMORIES OF 

of all the red nations. They have struck terror into the breasts of 
the boldest enemies of the Natchez ; and mothers, when their sons 
paint their bodies in the colors of war, say to them : 

" ' Fight where, and with whom you please ; 

But beware, oh ! beware of the chiefs of the Beard. 

Give way to them as you would to death. 

Or their black beards with your blood will be red.' 

"Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. When the first 
chief of the Beard first trimmed the sacred fire in the temple, a voice 
was heard which said : ' As long as there lives a chief of the race of 
the Suns with a beard on his chin, no evil can happen to the Natchez 
nation ; but if the white race should ever resume the blood which it 
gave in a bloody day, woe, three times woe, to the Natchez ! Of them 
nothing will remain but the shadow of a name.' Thus spake the 
invisible prophet. Years rolled on, years thick on years, and none 
of the accursed white-faces were seen ; but they appeared at last, 
wrapped up in their pale skins like shrouds of the dead, and the 
father of my father, whom tradition had taught to guard against the 
predicted danger, slew two of the hated strangers, and my father, in 
his turn, killed four. 

" ' Praise be to the chiefs of the Beard, 

Who knew how to avenge their old ancestral injury, 
When with the sweet blood of a white foe 
Their black beards they proudly dyed red.' 

" Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. When I saw the 
glorious light of day there was born to them a great warrior of the 
race of their Suns — a warrior and a chief with a beard on his chin. 
The pledge of protection, of safety, and of glory stood embodied in 
me. When I shouted my first war-whoop the owl hooted and smelt 
the ghosts of my enemies, the wolves howled, and the carrion vul- 
tures shrieked with joy ; for they knew their food was coming, and I 
fed them with Chickasaws' flesh and with Choctaws' flesh until they 
were gorged with the flesh of the red man. A kind master and pur- 
veyor I was to them — the poor, dumb creatures that I loved. But 
lately I have given them more dainty food. I boast of having done 
better than my father. Five Frenchmen have I killed, and my only 
regret in dying is, that it will prevent me from killing more. 



FIFTY YEARS. 267 

" ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! that was game worthy of the chief of the Beard ! 
How lightly he danced. Ho! ho! ho! 
How gladly he shouted. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
Each time with French blood his beard became red.' 

"Sorrow in the hearts of the Natchez ! The great hunter is no 
more. The wise chief is going to meet his fathers. The indomita- 
ble warrior will no more raise his hatchet in defence of the children 
of the Sun. O burning shame ! He was betrayed by his brother- 
chiefs, who sold his blood. If they had followed his advice they 
would have united with the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and all the other 
red nations, and they would have slain all the French dogs that came 
prowling and stealing over the beautiful face of our country. But 
there was too much of the woman in their cowardly hearts. Well 
and good ! Let the will of fate be accomplished. The white race 
will soon resume the blood which it gave, and then the glory and 
the very existence of the Natchez nation will have departed forever 
with the chief of the Beard ; for I am the last of my race, and my 
blood flows in no other human veins. O Natchez, Natchez ! remem- 
ber the prophet's voice ! I am content to die; for I leave no one 
behind me but the doomed, while I go to revel with my brave 
ancestors, 

" ' They will recognize their son in the chief of the Beard ; 
They will welcome him to their glorious homestead 
When they see so many scalps at his girdle, 
And his black beard with French blood painted red.' " 

He stood up in proud defiance before the admiring French ; his 
noble form expanded to its full proportions, hatred in his heart and 
triumph in his eyes. Facing his foes, he viewed the platoon selected 
to deal him his death, and lifted his eyes and hands to the sun. The 
bfficer gave the command, the platoon fired as one man, and the 
great chief of the Beard passed away. 

This was the beginning of difficulties with the French, and also 
the commencement of the utter destruction of the Natchez. War 
succeeded war, until the last of this people, few in number, broke up 
from the Washita, whither they had fled for security years before, 
and went, as they fondly hoped, too far into the bosom of the deep 
West to be found again by the white-skins. But Clarke and Lewis 
found them high up on the Missouri, still preserving the holy fire, 



268 THE MEMORIES OF 

the flat heads, and their hatred of the white race. Their bones are 
even now turned up by the plough near the mounds of their making, 
and soon these mounds will be all that is left to speak of the once 
powerful Natchez. I have stood upon the great mound of their 
temple at the White Apple village, forty years ago, then covered 
with immense forest-trees, at the graves of the great grandfather 
and mother of my children. To these was donated, in 1780, by the 
Spanish Government, the land on which the temple and the village 
stood. It is a beautiful spot in the centre of a lovely and most pic- 
turesque country. It was here these Indians feasted the great La 
Salle and his party when descending the Mississippi. They were the 
first white men that had descended the river, and the first white men 
the Natchez had ever seen. 



CHAPTER XX. 

EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

Chicago — Crying Indians — Chickasaws — De Soto — Feast of the Great 
Sun — Cane Knives — Love-Stricken Indian Maiden — Rape of the 
Natchez — Man's Will — Subjugation of the Waters — The Black 
Man's Mission — Its Decade. 

LA SALLE, who first discoverd the mouth of the Mississippi 
River, was a man of most remarkable energy and enterprise. 
He had been engaged in commercial pursuits for some time in 
Canada ; but, seized with the spirit of adventure — very probably 
inspired by the reports of the Jesuit missionaries, who were going 
and returning from the vast wilderness — and inspired with the belief 
(then common) that the rivers west, and particularly the great river 
found by De Soto, debouched into the Pacific Ocean, he deter- 
mined to learn the truth, and projected and commenced the ascent 
of the St. Lawrence and the navigation of the lakes as a means of 
reaching the Mississippi. It required almost superhuman daring to 
undertake such an enterprise ; but there was enough in La Salle to 
accomplish anything possible to human capacity. His followers, like 



FIFTY YEARS. 269 

himself, were fearless and determined and, with a few small boats, 
or skiffs, he commenced his perilous adventure. It was like walking 
ia the dark over uncertain ground ; for every step was over unex- 
plored territory, the moment he passed the establishments of the 
Jesuits, who were then pioneering to propagate their creed among 
the aborigines of the new continent. 

His first winter was spent on the spot, or in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of where Chicago now stands. Here he invited to his 
camp the neighboring Indians, and endeavored to learn as much as 
possible of the geography of the country he was about to explore. 
Parlies were sent out with these Indians to ascertain if there was any 
stream or water-communication leading from Lake Michigan to the 
West, and which might connect it with the Mississippi. Sufficient of 
the language of the tribes about'him had been acquired to establish a 
means of intelligent intercourse with them. They were curious to 
know the objects of the visit of the white strangers to their country. 
Always suspicious of strangers — supposing all, like themselves, treach- 
erous and cruel — they kept on the alert and were chary of giving any 
information they might possess as to this, or any other matters about 
which the white men asked ; but, watchful of their movements, and 
seeing from their explorations their intentions, they became con- 
vinced of the sincerity of their inquiries, and readily pointed out the 
portage dividing the waters of Chicago Creek and those of the Illi- 
nois River. 

When the spring came, and the snows had melted away, and the 
boats were all over the portage, with the assistance of the savages, the 
expedition was renewed in the descent of the Illinois. The Indians 
had been so kindly treated, and so sincerely dealt with, that every 
suspicion that made them fear the whites was dissipated, and they 
were loath to part from them, and many accompanied the party until 
they were about entering the territory of hostile neighbors. Of these 
they seemed to entertain great fears, and every means of persuasion 
and warning were used to prevent their white friends hazarding them- 
selves to the power of these enemies. When the last were to leave, 
tliey manifested more emotion than is usual with the savage, and one 
of La Salle's party more facetious than the Indian designated them 
the Crying Indians. 

La Salle was a wise as well as a bold adventurer. His policy with 
all the tribes he encountered was kindness and truth. These were 
23* 



270 THE MEMORIES OF 

human beings, and he correctly judged influenced by the motives and 
impulses of men. They had never seen white men before, and there 
could be no cause of quarrel, and there was little in the possession 
of the whites, the use of which was known to the Indian to tempt 
his cupidity. He manifested no fears in approaching them. Their 
curiosity tempted them to come to him, and once met, his kindness 
and gentleness won them ; and he experienced no opposition or 
trouble from any he met ; but succeeded in gaining much informa- 
tion from his communications with them. When he reached the 
Mississippi he began to doubt the accepted theory of its discharging 
its waters into the Pacific, and upon reaching the mouth of the Mis- 
souri and counseling with the chief of the tribe he met there, he at 
once determined the speculation a delusion, and decided to prose- 
cute his journey to the mouth of the mighty stream, now with almost 
irresistible impetuosity hurrying on his little flotilla. This chief by 
many signs and diagrams marked with his finger upon the sand of 
the beach, described the country out of which flowed the Missouri, 
and into which went the Mississippi, and seemed to comprehend at 
least the extent of its constantly accumulating waters and great 
length. Like all the other savages, he represented the dangers 
below as being too formidable for the small party of La Salle. He 
described the Natchez Indians and gave them a terrible character ; 
then the monsters of the woods and the waters. He marked the 
form of the tiger, the bear, and the alligator and described them as- 
aggressive and ferocious. Taking a handful of sand he scattered it 
on the boat's floor or bottom, and pointing to the separate particles, 
attempted to explain by this means the countless numbers of these 
Indians, and monsters of the country below. Here was his first 
information of the existence of the Natchez, but his information 
augmented as he descended the river. At the bluffs, where now is 
Memphis, he encountered the Chickasaws and learned of the visit 
of De Soto to that point, and of his death. These Indians warned 
him of the dangers he had to encounter. They had had trouble 
with De Soto and were chary of their intercourse with the whites, but 
manifested no hostility. 

The next tribe of Indians seen was at the Walnut Hills, now Vicks- 
burg. Their flat heads told him he had reached the country of 
that formidable nation, but he held no communication with them. 
Landing at the great bluff or Natchez, he found there quite a village. 



FIFTY YEARS. 271 

The natives approached him mJnifesting the kindest and most hos- 
pitable intentions. For some day? he delayed, to learn as much as 
possible from these people in the observation of their character and 
the topography and peculiarities of the country they were inhabiting. 
Runners had been dispatched to the Great Sun at the White Apple 
village, to inform him of the advent of these pale-faced strangers, 
with beard on their chins. Like information was communicated to 
the towns on Cole's Creek and further in the inferior. La Salle was 
furnished with pilots and requested to drop down to the White Cliffs, 
now known as Ellis' Cliffs, eighteen miles below Natchez, where a 
delegation would meet and conduct him to the White Apple village. 
These pilots caused the landing of the party at the niouth of St. 
Catharine's Creek, a point much nearer the village than the cliffs, and 
from whence it was much more easily approached. Thence they con- 
ducted them to the village and temple of the Great Sun. They came 
by surprise, and there was manifested some suspicions of the motive. 
But being informed it was the work of the pilots, all were satisfied 
and a messenger dispatched for the great escort awaiting the party at 
White Cliffs. 

There were great preparations made for a solemn feast. Game in 
abundance had been collected : the meat of the deer and the bear 
and every variety of the wild-fowl peculiar to the country and season. 
These were spread out upon tables made of the wild-cane, placed 
upon poles sustained by posts driven into the ground, and covered 
with neatly dressed skins of the bear, elk, and buffalo. There were 
fish in abundance, the paupaw and the berries which grew abundantly 
in the forest. The Great Sun led La Salle to the centre of the square 
formed by the tables, where one had been prepared for him and the 
great ruler of the Natchez. Rude seats were arranged only for these 
two. The Little Suns, or smaller chiefs of surrounding villages, 
assembled with the great warriors and whites accompanying the 
expedition at the tables forming the square. These Indians hai 
knives formed from the wild cane of the country and hardened in the 
fire, which were used for carving their meats and other like purposes 
one of these was placed in the hand of every white man. The Great 
Sun standing up, looked reverently upon the sun for a few moments. 
Then lifting his hands, placed them on the head of La Salle. ThLs 
was imitated by the Little Suns placing their hands upon the heads of 
all the whites, and when the chief or Great Sun removed his hands, 



»e 



272 THE MEMORIES OF 

and said, "Eat," the Little Suns did likewise, and the feast com- 
menced. These cane knives, however, were comparatively useless 
in the hands of the French, ar,d laying them down, they took from 
the belts at their sides the Urge hunting-knives they carried. This 
movement was so simultaneous, that alarm was apparent in every 
Indian face and a moverjient was made by the Indians as if to leave 
the table ; but they were soon reassured when they saw the use to 
which they were applied. They watched the ease with which these 
cut through the flcsh and cleaved the smaller bones of their repast, 
and expressed cheir astonishment in asking where the canes grew 
from which they were made — indicating conclusively that they had 
never before seen a metallic knife, and probably never before had 
seen iron or steel. When the feast had concluded, La Salle was led 
to a loc'.ge prepared for him, and all his party were shown to places 
prepared for them, to repose after the meal. Upon the males 
retiring, the women came forth cleanly clad and removed everything 
^rom the tables. 

This was the first view the whites had of the Natchez women. 
When their work was completed, they commenced to chant a song 
in slow and measured tones ; soon, however, it quickened into merry 
cadences and the young females commenced a wild, fantastic dance. 
The older sang on, keeping time by slapping their hands and a swing- 
ing movement of the head and body right and left. Aj)parently, at 
the termination of a stanza, tliey would stoop suddenly forward and 
slap the hands upon each thigh, uttering at the same moment a shrill 
cry, when the dancers would leap with astonishing agility high in the 
air and, alighting, stand perfectly still. This exhibition called the 
French from their repose, who seemed delighted, and very soon 
joined in the dance; mirth excited mirth, and in a little while the 
village was in a complete uproar. The young warriors, however, were 
seen to scowl whenever the French approached too nigh the women, 
and especially when they took their hands and turned them around. 
The French were not slow to perceive this, nor were they mistaken 
in the delight it afforded the girls. The timidity of the latter soon 
disappeared and each lass singled out a beau, and was quite familiar 
with him. The French remained for some days enjoying the hospi- 
tality of the Natchez, returning to their boats and to the opposite 
shore of the river at night for greater security. 

Among the French there was one, a stalwart young fellow, who 



N 

\ 

FI/TY YEARS. 273 

had made the conquest of a heart among the maidens, and was sur- 
prised late at night to find she hard swum the Mississippi to place 
herself by his side at the camp-fire. She implored him to remain 
with the Natchez and become a Great Sun, that her family was one 
of great influence at the White Clay viVlage of which she was the 
belle, and she would marry him. She was rich, and the favorite of 
the Little Sun of her town, who had given her great presents. But 
Crapaud was aware of the price of these gifts;, and though he did 
not refuse, was not inclined to the union, or to rciTiain with her peo- 
ple. He promised, however, to see her to-morrow, and told her if 
he could prevail on some of his companions to remain, he would ; 
but insisted if they would not, she must consent to follow him and 
provide a girl for each of his companions, who would accompany 
them to their homes, which he made very lovely in his description. 
They were standing now on the bank of the river and day was 
approaching. She pointed to the planet just above the horizon, and 
then to the place in the heavens where it would be in an hour, anti 
said she must then be in her lodge, and plunging into the river swam 
rapidly to the opposite shore. The next day was the one appointed 
for the departure of La Salle and party. True to her promise — 
the Natchez girl had found a maiden for each of the party, who was 
willing to abandon her people and go with the strangers on their 
perilous and unknown journey, and to be the wives of the pale-faces. 

The French, with much ceremony, were dismissed by the Great 
Sun, and a strong escort of both sexes followed them to their boats. 
The ceremony of shaking hands was gone through with ; all the 
men first, and then the women; the last, as previously arranged, were 
the girls who were to follow their sweethearts. At a signal each was 
grasped and hurried forward toward the boats. The alarm was 
given, and in a moment the bows of the warriors were strung, and 
they rushed yelling to the rescue ; overpowered, the French released 
the women and springing into their boats were soon out of danger of 
the arrows which were sent in showers after them — nor did they 
escape unscathed. Several of the men were wounded, and some of 
them severely. When once away from, the shore, the French seized 
their guns and fired a volley, but were prevented from further dem- 
onstrations by La Salle ; not wishing to leave behind him an enemy, 
who might be troublesome to him on his return up the river. 

This adventure was the only hostile one of the entire trip. Tliis 
S 



2 74 1' ^^ F' MEMORIES OF 

was provoked by the folly and crime of his men without the knowl- 
edge of La Salle. How true it i)5 that man in every condition and 
of every race will fight for his> woman as surely as the game cock 
for his hen ! Long years after, and when the last Natchez had been 
gone from the land of hi-ii love many years, and when threatening 
war was disturbing the people of the colonies, there came here a 
band of men, as had come to this land of beauty and plenty, the 
oppressors of the Natchez, seeking to make a peaceful home upon 
these hills, where ^rew in luxuriant profusion the magnolia and great 
tulip-trees, and where the atmosphere was redolent with the perfume 
of the wild flowers which clothed and ornamented the trees and 
grounds so fruitful and rich with nature's gifts. 

The country was claimed as part of West Florida and dominated 
by the Spanish Government. They were anxious to have the country 
populated, and donated certain quantities or tracts of land to any 
one who came to settle and remain in the country. These settle- 
inents at first were made on the bluffs projecting through the alluvial 
swamp to the river's brink, and at or near the mouths of the small 
streams debouching into the river from the eastern shore. The west 
bank was deemed uninhabitable in consequence of the spring-floods 
sweeping over the alluvial formation, extending from forty to seventy 
miles west of tl>e river ; and there being no highlands or bluffs 
approaching the river from the west, below what is now known as 
Helena, in Arkansas, this vast territory was one interminable SNvamp, 
clothed with immense forest-trees, gigantic vines, and jungle-bushes. 
It was interspersed with lakes, and bayous as reservoirs and drains 
for the wonderful floods which annually visit this country. Around 
these were lands remarkable for their fertility — indeed, unsurpassed 
by any on the face of the earth ; but worthless, however, for cultiva- 
tion, as long as unprotected against these annual floods. The system 
of leveeing was too onerous and expensive to be undertaken by the 
people sparsedly populating the eastern bank throughout the hill- 
country. The levee system which had reclaimed so much of the low 
country in Louisiana, had not extended above Pointe Couple, in 1826. 
Yet there were some settlements on several of the lakes above, espe- 
cially on Lakes Concordia and St. Joseph. 

The immense country in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mis- 
sissippi in possession of the Indians, interposed a barrier to emigra- 
tion. To think of leaving home and friends to go away beyond 



FIFTY YEARS. 275 

these savages, seemed an undertaking too gigantic for any but men 
of desperate fortunes, or of the moLit indomitable energy. 

Adventurers had wandered into the country and returned with ter- 
rible stories of. the unhealthiness of the ch'mate as well as the diffi- 
culties to be overcome in reaching it; thus deterring the emigrant 
who desired a new home. When General Jackson was elected to the 
Presidency a new policy was inaugurated. The Indians were removed 
beyond the Mississippi ; the lands they had occupied were brought 
into market, and a flood of emigration poured into these new acquisi- 
tions. Cotton had suddenly grown into great demand. The increase 
of population, and the great cheapness of the fabrics from cotton, 
had increased the demand. In Europe it had rapidly increased, and 
in truth all over the world. Emigration from Europe had set in to 
a heavy extent upon the United States, and the West was growing in 
population so rapidly as to create there a heavy demand for these 
fabrics. The world was at peace ; commerce was unrestricted, and 
prosperity was everywhere. Europe had recovered from her long 
war, and the arts of peace had taken hold of every people, and were 
bearing their fruit. All the lands intermediate between the frontiers 
west of Georgia and Tennessee and those of the east of Mississippi 
and Louisiana were soon appropriated ; and the more fertile lands of 
the two latter States were coming rapidly into request for the purpose 
of cotton cultivation. 

The great flood of 1828 had swept over every cultivated field west 
of the Mississippi, and seemed to demonstrate the folly of ever 
attempting to reduce these lands to profitable cultivation. But with 
the increase of population came wealth and enterprise. The levees 
were continued up the river. A long period of comparatively low 
water encouraged settlements upon the alluvial bottoms. The levees 
were continued up the west bank, and in a few years the forests had 
melted away from the margin of the river. Large fields were in their 
stead, and were continually increasing in extent. Improvements of 
a superior character were commencing, and an occasional break in 
the levee, and partial inundation, did not deter, but rather stimulated 
the planters to increased exertion, to discipline and control the great 
floods poured down from the rain-sheds extending from the head- 
waters of the Ohio to those of the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, 
and Red Rivers, embracing in extent an area greater than the conti- 
nent of Europe. It really seemed an attempt to defy the decrees of 



276 THE MEMORIES OF 

fate. In 1828, the waters from Cairo to Baton Rouge, a distance of 
nine hundred miles, averaged fiftj- miles in width. For months the 
great river was covered with forests of timber, torn up with the roots 
by the flood, floating and tumbling wildly along the terrible torrent, 
making the navigation extremely dangerous for the few steamers 
then upon the river. Kow often have I heard old men, who were 
long resident in the country, when standing on the bluff at Natchez, 
viewing the extent &f that memorable flood, say : " Every man who 
attempts to cultivate these bottom lands will be ruined. The river 
demands them as a reservoir for her surplus waters when in flood." 
But enterprise was undeterred ; the levees went up and the settlements 
went on to increase ; and when the spoiler came all the valley was 
dotted over with pretty villages and magnificent cotton plantations, 
containing and sustaining a prosperous, rich, intelligent, and happy 
population. They are swept away, and ruin reigns over this deso- 
lated land. 

This was but the beginning of the subduing to man's will and cul- 
tivation this entire and unparalleled valley. What had been done 
demonstrated the possibility of redeeming every inch of the alluvial 
land along the entire valley to the production of the richest staples, 
with all the necessaries to man's support, comfort, and wealth. It is 
pleasing to contemplate this immense plain as one extended scene of 
cultivation — the beautiful lakes of every form, surrounded with pala- 
tial homes and fertile fields; lovely towns upon their borders, with the 
church-spires pointing to heaven, surrounded with shrubs and flowers 
of every variety and hue ; streams meandering among the extended 
plantations ; railroads intersecting it in every direction ; and all this 
mighty field, a thousand miles long by fifty broad, teeming with pro- 
duction, and pouring into the lap of commerce a wealth absolutely 
incalculable. The work was begun and was rapidly progressing ; 
but now, when and by whom will this great, glorious garden be 
made ? 

To do this was the black man's mission ; but ere his work was 
done he was converted into a machine to undo all his work. Incon- 
ceivable calamity has followed, and to him is fixed a decade which 
will soon run to extinction. 



FIFTY YEARS. 277 



CHAPTER XXI. 

TWO STRANGE BEINGS. 

Romance of Western Life — Met bv Chance — Parting on the Levee — 
Meeting at the Sick-bed — Convalescent — Love-Making — " Home, 
Sweet Home" — Theological Discussions — Uncle Tony — Wild, Yet 
Gentle — An Odd Family — The Adventurer Speculates. 

IT was in the spring of the year away back in time when there 
landed at the town of St. Francisville, or Bayou Sara, a small 
periagua, or canoe, containing two young men clad in skins, with a 
camp-kettle, guns, some curiously painted skins, Indian bows, quivers, 
and Indian curiosities. Their hair was long, their unshaven beards 
were full and flowing, and in all their appearance they were wild and 
savage. There were but few houses in the hamlet below the hill. 
Among these was one of more pretensions than the rest. It was a 
store, and the merchant was an Irishman. There was near it a neat 
family carriage. One of the young savages went into this store to 
find materials for writing to his home-friends, from whom he had 
been separated for many long months. He found in the store three 
ladies. Two were young, the other was an aged matron. They 
seemed not only surprised at the novel apparition before them, but 
alarmed. This surprise seemed to increase when they saw the young 
savage rapidly filling, upon the counter, a sheet of pa^er. They 
desisted frSm their shopping, and watched intently the wild savage. 
When his letter was completed, he politely desired the accommo- 
dating merchant to send it for him to the post-office. Then lifting 
his gray wolf-skin cap from his head, he bowed politely to the ladies 
and turned to leave the store and their presence. The salutation was 
gracefully acknowledged, and especially by the matron. Very soon 
they joined the curious crowd who were examining the contents of 
the canoe, now placed on the land to await the coming of a steamer 
that was freighting with cotton above. One of the young ladies 
seemed much interested and made many inquiries. A bow and 
quiver was given into her hand. The latter was fashioned from the 
skin of a Mexican tiger, and was filled with arrows. One of these 
was bloody, and its history was asked of the youth she had met in the 
24 



2/8 THE MEMORIES O E 

Store. It was the blood of a Pawnee chief who, by this arrow, had 
been slain in battle, and was the gift to the youth from the daughter 
of the fallen chief, together with the bow and quiver of the Indian 
who had slain her father, and who was in turn killed by a- chief of 
her tribe. 

How beautiful she was to this wanderer of the wilderness ! Months 
upon months had passed away, and he had only looked upon the 
blank and unmeaning features of the desert savage woman. With 
these his heart had no sympathy. Like the panther of their plains 
they were swift of foot, symmetrical in form, wild, untamed and 
untamable, fierce and unfeeling ; and were not formed by nature for 
sympathy or social union with the higher organizations of civilized 
man. His dream of romance was being realized. The vacuum in 
his heart was filling. How in contrast were his feelings and appear- 
ance ! Clad as a savage, his skin was covered with the fabric of an 
Indian woman, closely fitting, with moccasins on his feet, and a gray 
wolf-skin cap upon his head — his long, black hair with the luxuriant 
growth of two years curling over his shoulders, andr his beard, like 
the wing of night fluttering in the breeze, waving down from his chin 
to his breast in ringlets, glossy and beautiful. He was lithe as a sav- 
age, and seemed to be one. In his heart were kindling soft emo- 
tions, and memories of maidens he had known — now far, far away — 
came crowding upon that heart. Before him stood the embodiment 
of beauty and grace, attired with costly and beautiful fabrics which 
flowed about her person like the white vapor upon the breezes of 
spring. Elegance was in her every attitude, and grace in every 
movement. Her features and her eyes beamed with a curious wish 
to learn the story of the strange wild being before her. Their two 
hearts were in sympathy ; but to each other it was a secret. How 
strangely they had met ! How strangely they were feeling ! How 
soon they were to part ! " Where is he from? Where is he going? " 
asked her eyes ; and he looked : " Who are you ; and where is your 
home, beautiful being, so strangely and so unexpectedly met? " 

An arrow was shot from the bow to gratify a request. She fol- 
lowed the quivering thing with her eye, as it sped like a shaft of 
light to its destined mark. To retrieve it she walked with the youth 
to where, fixed in a bale of cotton, it trembled, some hundred yards 
away. Slowly she returned by the youth's side, and drooped her 
head, listening to the wild mountain adventures he was telling — the 



FIFTY YEARS. 279 

chase of the elk, the antelope, and the wild buffalo ; the hazardous 
ride through the wild prairies, expanding away in the distance to 
kiss the horizon ; the stealthy wiles of the revengeful savage ; the 
fierce fight of savage men; the race for very life, when the foe fol- 
lowed ; and the bivouac upon the prairie's breast, with the weary 
horse sleeping and resting by his side. Will he ever forget the 
speaking of the beaming features of that beautiful creature, when she 
lifted her head and looked into his face ? A frown darkened the 
matron's features as her ^llve returned to the curious group which 
was listening to the narrative of the older of the two strangers. It 
said: " What did you leave me for ? Why this indiscretion ? " Ah 1 
how often old women forget they were once young ! 

The steamer is coming. She is here ; and the trappings of the wan- 
derers are on board. The young wild man stands alone upon the 
upper deck. His eyes pierce to where stands the sylph he leaves 
with reluctance. She is looking at him. He lifts his cap and 
bows farewell. She waves her kerchief in return. The steamer 
speeds away. They are parted. Has that brief interview left an 
impression upon those two young hearts to endure beyond a day? 
Will she dream of the dark beard, curled and flowing — of the darker 
eye which looked and spoke? and will the wild story of the western 
wilderness come in the silent darkness of her chamber, and make 
her nestle closer to her pillow? Will her heart ask : " Shall I ever 
meet him again ? " 

He has gone away ; a waif about the land — a feather on the 
world, driven about, as destiny impels, without fixed intentions; yet 
buoyant with the ardor of youth, and happy in the excess of 
youthful hopes, dreamy and wild adventures. He has tasted the 
savage love of woods and wilds, and the nature — which was born 
thousands of years ere the teachings of civilization had tamed the 
wild man into an educated, home-loving being — revives, and the 
two struggle for mastery in his heart. The bleak mountain-peaks, 
the wide-extended plain and its wild denizens, and the excitement 
these give, stirs his bosom, and the wish struggles up to return to 
them. But the gentler chords of his heart are in tune. The once- 
loved home, and she, the once-loved and yet-remembered maiden, 
is there, and it may be she pines for his return. He gazed on the 
beautiful apparition but a moment gone, and thought of another ; 
and thought begat thought until the loved one he had left rose up to 



2So THE MEMORIES OF 

memory's call. He was alone, looking upon the great river through 
whose turbid waters he was borne away, and he felt he was lengthen- 
ing a chain linked to his heart which pulled him back — to what, 
and to whom ? It was a vision — a dream with his eyes open : indis- 
tinct, unembodied, a very shadow; still it floated about in his 
imagination, and he was sad. He was in the city — the great Sodom 
of the West. He was an object of wonder to every curious eye. 
His wild appearance and gentle manner comported illy, and the 
thoughtless crowd followed him. Attired now as a civilized being, 
and feeling that the vagrant life of a savage must lead to grief, he 
called to mind the tear which stole from the rheumy eyes of the old 
trapper as he narrated his adventures in the AVilderness, and cursed 
the hour he ever wandered from his home. His life had been a 
continual danger, his hope had been always to return to his early 
attachments ; but the chain of habit fettered him, and he had learned 
to love the wild, solitary life, because of its excitements and its dan- 
gers. Should he, like this man, come to love the solitude and silence 
of the wilderness, and find companionship only with his traps and 
guns? 

His resolution was taken, he would renew the strife with the world 
and go back to busy life. His companion of many dangers and long 
marches was going to Mexico in search of new adventures. They 
are alone upon the broad levee — busy men are hurrying to and fro, 
little heeding the two — a small schooner is dropping and sheeting 
home her sails ; she is up for Tampico, and Gilmanot goes in her ; 
she is throwing off her fastenings. " All aboard," cries the swarthy, 
whiskered captain — a grasp of the hand — no word was spoken — 
it was warm and sincere, there was no need of words — each under- 
stood that last warm farewell pressure. She is sweeping around 
Slaughter-house Point — only the topmasts are visible now — and now 
she is gone. The young adventurer stands alone and the crowd goes 
hurrying on. How many in desolation of heart have stood alone 
and unheeded by the busy, passing multitude upon that broad levee ! 
How many tears of misery have moistened its shell-covered summit, 
when thinking of friends far, far away they should never see again, 
and when hope had been rooted from the heart ! 

He Avandered to the great square, now so beautifully ornamented 
with shrubs and flowers which love the sun and the South's fat soil, 
growing and blooming about the bronze representation of the loved 



FIFTY YEARS. 28 1 

hero who had been her shield and savior in the hour of her peril, 
Andrew Jackson. Then there were a few trees only, and beneath 
these, here and there, a rude rural seat or bench. The old, gray 
cathedral was frowning on the world's sins, so rife around her; and 
the great, naked square and the mighty muddy river which was hur- 
rying away to the sea. To the most thoughtless will come reflection, 
and the sweetest face is mellowed by sorrow. Here under these 
trees, in the midst of a great city, came to the young adventurer 
reflection and sighing sorrow. His mother and father came up in 
memory ; the home of childhood, his brother, his sister, his friends, 
all were remembered; his heart flooded over and he wept like a little 
child. Blessed are they who can cry. It is nature's outlet for grief, 
and the heart would break if we could not cry. The heart is not 
desolate when alone in the forest or the boundless grass-clothed plains 
of the West. Nature is all around you, and her smile is benificent. 
There is companionship in the breeze, in the waving grass, the rust- 
ling leaves, and the moanings of the wind-swayed limbs of the yield- 
ing forest. In the city's multitude to move, and be unknown of all ; 
to hear no recognized voice; to meet no sympathizing smile or eye; 
to be silent when all are speaking, and to know that not one of all 
these multitudes share a thought or wish with you — this is desolation, 
the bitterness of solitude. 

A year has gone by, and the youth has found a new home and has 
made new friends. He is one of the busy world and struggling with it. 
He is in commerce's mart and is one of the multitude who come and 
congregate there for gain ; in the hall of Justice, where litigants 
court the smiles and favors of the blind goddess, where right con- 
tends against wrong, and is as often trampled as triumphant ; and 
where wisdom lends herself for hire, and bad men rarely meet their 
dues. 

Pestilence had come, and the frightened multitude were fleeing 
from the scourge. There was one who came and proff"ered the hos- 
pitality of his home — where Hygeia smiled and fever never came. 
Thither he went, but the poison was in his blood, and as he slept it 
seized upon his vitals. His suffering was terrible, and for days life's 
uncertain tenure seemed ready to release her hold on time. In his 
fever-dream there was flitting about him a fairy form; it would come 
and go, as the moonlight on the restless wave — a moment seen and in 
a moment gone. He saw and knew nothing for many days distinctly; 
24* 



282 THE MEMORIES OF 

he would call for his mother and weep, when only winds would 
answer. Delirium was in his brain, and wild fancies chased each 
other ; he heard the crowing of cocks arid saw his sister ; his father 
would come to him, and he would stretch out his hand and grasp the 
shadowy nothing. There was a halo of beauty all about him ; pris- 
matic hues trembled in the light, and the tones of sweet music floated 
upon thd breeze. He saw angels swimming in the golden light; the 
blue ether opened, and they came through to greet him and to wel- 
come him to heaven. Then all was darkness, the crisis had come. 
He slept in oblivious ease — it was long; and awaking, the fever was 
gone. There was a gentle, sweet, sorrowful face before him — their 
eyes met ; for a moment only he looked — it was she whom he had 
met and parted from without a hope of ever meeting again when 
robed as the Indian he stood upon the steamer's deck and waved 
farewell forever. He reached forth his hand. She took it and 
approached, saying, "You are better, and will soon be well." He 
could only press her hand as the tears flooded over his eyes. With 
a kerchief white as innocence it was wiped away and the hand that 
held it laid gently on his brow — that touch thrilled his every nerve. 

Days went by, and the convalescent was amid the shrubs and 
flowers of the beautifully ornamented grounds. When he came to the 
maiden reading in the shade of a great pecan-tree, she bid him to a 
seat. 

" Do you remember our first meeting? " he asked. 

" Here, on your sick-bed, yes ; you were, oh ! so sick, and I little 
thought you would ever leave it alive. You called in your delirium 
your mother and your father, and in the frenzy of your mind you 
saw them by you ; how my heart was pained, and how I prayed for 
you, in my chamber, here, and everywhere — and now you are well, 
only weak." 

" It was not when sick I met you first," he replied ; "as a wild 
man you saw me first, clothed in the skins of the wild beasts of the 
forest." 

She gazed intently ; could it be ? and clasping her hands she 
bowed her head and was silent. 

" We have met again," he continued ; "I had not forgotten you, 
but I dared not hope we should ever meet any more. It was a pain- 
ful thought ; but I must not tell that — " and there was silence. 

Days went by, and the invalid was growing in strength and health. 



FIFTY YEARS. 283 

They only met at the table at the family meals, but they were near 
each other. It was at dinner when a ride on horseback was pro- 
posed for the evening's recreation. They rode in company, and 
through the forest where the winding road circled the hills, and the 
great magnolias threw their dark shade and deliciously cooled the 
vesper breeze. 

"Is it romance, or are you the young gentleman with flowing hair 
and black, curling beard I met, and who shot the arrow into the 
cotton bale for my amusement ? O ! how often have I seen you in 
my dreams ; but I shall never see you as I saw you then. What a 
study you were to me ! How could your words be so soft and gentle 
in the wild costume of the murderous savage ? Had you uttered the 
war-whoop and strode away with the stride and pride of the savage 
warrior, there would have been euphony in it, and I should have felt 
and known you were a savage — and you would have passed from my 
mind. But, ah ! look how beautifully bounds away the startled doe 
we have aroused from her lair in the cave here." 

"She seems scarcely more startled than did you when I came so 
unexpectedly upon you in the store at Bayou Sara. Were you not 
surprised to see that I could write ? " 

"You must not question me now. Why have you cut your hair 
and beard? why doffed the prairie chieftain's robes of state and come 
forth a plain man? You have dispelled my romance. I have tried 
to paint you as I saw and remembered you, and made charcoal 
sketches for the gratification of friends to whom I would describe 
you. I would so like to see you as you were ! O ! you were a won- 
der to me, a very Orson — now, you are simply a — " 

"Miserable creature in plain clothes, and by no means a lady's 
fancy. Why did you not let me die, since all that was to be fancied 
about me — my hair, my beard, and my buckskin coat, pants, and 
moccasins are gone and destroyed ? " 

The maiden laughed wildly ; it was not the laugh of mirth or 
mischief, there was a madness in it that thrilled and awed. 

" Do you know you are on the graves of a great nation? " she 
asked. "This mound and yonder three, were the burial-places of 
the Natchez Indians. The Suns and Sachems sleep here, and he, 
the Great Sun, who came from the orbit's self, and was their law- 
giver, and in whom and whose divinity they believed as the Jews in 
that of Moses, or the Christians in the Redeemer. Is it not all a 



284 THE MEMORIES OF 

mystery — strange, strange, incomprehensible, and unnatural? What 
is your faith?" 

"To worship where I love; the divinity of my soul's worship is 
the devotion of my wild heart.' 

"Why, you are mysterious! Have you, as had the Natchez, a 
holy fire which is never extinguished in your heart ? Is the flame 
first kindled burning still? Did your sun come to you with fire in 
her hand and kindle it in your heart ? Your words mean so much. 
Was she, or is she a red maiden of the wild prairies ; or dwells she 
in a mansion surrounded with the appliances of wealth, reclining on 
cushions of velvet and sleeping on a bed of down, canopied with a 
pavilion of damask satin fretted with "stars of silver; with handmaids 
to subserve and minister to every want?" And again the wild laugh 
rang to the echo among the hills and dense forests all around. "O ! 
I see I have tuned the wrong chord and have made discord, not 
music in your mind. Shall we return ? You are not yet strong, and 
your weakness I have made weaker, because I have disturbed the 
fountain of your heart and brought up painful memories?" 

"You are strange," said her companion, "and guess wide of the 
mark. The untutored savage is only a romance at a distance — the 
reality of their presence a disgusting fact. They are wild, untama- 
ble, and wicked, without sentiment or sympathy, cruel and murder- 
ous; disgusting in their habits and brutal in their passions." 

"And yet, sir, the stories which come down to us of these so 
quietly sleeping here are full of romance and poetry. Their inter- 
course with the French impressed that mercurial people with exalted 
notions of their humanity, chivalry, and nobleness of nature. Can 
it be that these historians only wrote romances ? You must not 
disturb this romance. If it is an illusion let me enjoy it ; do not strip 
from it the beard, the hair, the hunting-shirt, the bow and quiver — 
reality or fiction, it is sweet to the memory. How often have I 
wandered from our home and stood here alone and conjured from 
the spirit-land the ghosts of the Great Suns, the Stung Serpent, and 
the chief of the Beard, and hers who warned the French of the 
conspiracy for their destniction. In my day-dreaming I have talked 
with these, and learned with delight of their bliss in their eternal 
hunting-grounds. And as I have knelt here, they in hosts have come 
to me with all their legends and long accounts against the white man, 
and I have wept above these dry bones, and felt too it was the fate of 



FIFTY YEARS. 285 

the white man, when his mission shall have been completed on earth, 
and his nation's age bear him into the ground, and only his legends 
shall live a tradition, like that of the Natchez. 

" The hieroglyphics of Thotmes, of Rameses, of Menephthah, and 
of the host of kings gone before these in Egypt's old life, cannot be 
read ; their language, letters, and traditions, too, sleep beyond the 
revelations of time, and yet their tombs, like these, give up their 
bones to the curious, who group through the catacombs, or dig at the 
base of their monumental pyramids. All besides has passed away 
and is lost. Not even the color of the great people who filled these 
monuments, and carved from the solid stone these miles of galleries, 
now filled to repletion with their mummied dead, and whose capacity 
is sufficient to entomb the dead of a nation for thousands of years, is 
known now to those who people the fields reclaimed from the forest 
beyond the memory of time. 

"Nations are born, have their periods of youthful vigor, their 
manhood of sturdy strength, the tottering of decrepit age, the imbe- 
cility of superstitious dotage — and their death is final extinction. 
Such is man, and such is the world. What we are, we know; what 
we shall be, we know not, save that we only leave a pile of bones. 
Come, we are approaching home, and the moon dares to shine, ere 
yet the sun has gone. Yonder is brother, and I expect a scolding ; 
but let him fret — it is not often I have a toy. Fate threw you in my 
way and you must not complain if I use you." 

" I shall not complain," replied the astonished young man ; "but 
will you ride again to-morrow? " 

She checked up her steed (a noble one he was) and seemed to take 
in his entire man, as slowly her eye went up from his stirrup to his 
face, when she said : ' ' To-morrow, ah, to-morrow ! Who can tell what 
to-morrow may bring forth ? To you and to me, there may come 
no to-morrow. We may in a twinkling be hurled from our sphere 
into oblivion. The earth may open to-night, or even now, and we 
may drop into her bosom of liquid fire, and be only ashes to-morrow. 

" 'Take no heed for to-morrow," is the admonition of wisdom. 
Look, yonder I was born. Here sleep the Natchez. See yonder tall 
mound, shaded from base to summit with the great forest trees pecu- 
liar to our land. On the top of that mound stood the temple dedi- 
cated to the worship of the sun. He smiles on it as the earth rolls 
up to hide his light away, as he did when the holy fire was watched 



286 THE MEMORIES OF 

by the priests in that temple. But the Indian worshipper is gone ; 
to him there comes no morrow. There, on that mound, sleep the 
parents of my mother ; to them comes no morrow. AUons ! We 
shall be late for tea. Brother has gone to sister's, and we shall be 
alone." In a few minutes they were galloping down the avenue 
to the old Spanish-looking mansion, hid away almost from view in 
the forest and floral surroundings, which made it so lovely to view. 

There had come in their absence another ; it was she who was the 
youthful companion of his fairy at the Bayou Sara — a silent, reserved 
woman : very timid and very polished. Upon the gallery she was 
awaiting the return of her cousin. The meeting was (as all meetings 
between high-bred women should be) quiet, but cordial; without 
show, but full of heart. They loved one another, and were high- 
bred women. The stranger was presented, and at tea the cousin was 
informed that he was the man from the mountains, and there was a 
curious, silent surprise in her face, when she almost whispered, " I 
am pleased, sir, to meet you again. I hope you will realize the 
romance of my cousin's dream with your legends of the West, the 
woods, and the wild men of the prairies." 

Days went by, and still the fever raged in the city. The cerulean 
was bright and unflecked with a speck of vapor, like a concave 
mirror of burnished steel. It hung above, and the red sun seemed 
to burn his way through the azure mass. The leaves drooped as if 
weighted with lead, and in the shade kindly thrown upon the wilting 
grass by the tulips, oaks, and pecans about the yard, the poultry 
lifted their wings and panted with exhaustion in the sickly heat of 
the fervid atmosphere. The sun had long passed the zenith, dinner 
was over, and the inmates were enjoying the siesta, so refreshing in 
this climate of the sun. Here and there the leaves would start and 
dally with a vagrant puff from vesper's lips, then droop again as if in 
grief at the vagaries of the little truant which now was fanning and 
stirring into lazy motion another leafy limb. 

There was music in the drawing room. It was suppressed and 
soft — so sweet that it melted into the heart in very stealth. Ah ! it 
is gone. *'Home, sweet home!" Poor Paine! like you, wander- 
ing in the friendless streets of England's metropolis and listening to 
your own sweet song, breathed from titled lips in palatial homes, 
the listener to-day was homeless. He thought of you and the con- 
vivial hours he had passed with you, listening to tlie narrative of 



FIFTY YEARS. 287 

your vagrant life, and how happy you were in the poetry of your 
own thoughts when you were a stranger to every one, and your purse 
was empty, and you knew not where you were to find your dinner. 

Genius, thou art a fatal gift ! Ever creating, never realizing ; 
living in a world of beauty etherialized in imagination's lens, and 
hating the material world as it is ; buffoted by fortune and ridiculed 
by fools whose conceptions never rise above the dirt. 

A little note, sweetly scented, is placed in his hand : 

" Cousin and I propose a ride. Shall we have your company? 
You are aware it is the Sabbath. You mus-t not, for us, do violence 
to your prejudices." 

"Is this," thought he, "a delicate invitation to save my feelings, 
and is the latter clause meant as a hint that they do not want me ? 
Well, the French always, when a compliment has as much bitter as 
sweet in it, take the sweet and leave the bitter unappropriated. It is 
a good example. I will follow it. Say to the ladies I will accom- 
pany them." 

"The horses are all ready, sir; and the ladies bonneted wait in 
the drawing-room." 

The sun was in the tree-tops and the shadows were long. There 
was a flirtation going on between the leaves and the breeze. The 
birds were flitting from branch to branch. A chill was on the air : 
it was bathing the cheek with its delicious touch, and animated life 
was rejoicing that evening had come. 

Arriving at the great mound of the temple of the sun, with some 
difficulty they climb to its summit. So dense is the shade that it is 
almost dark. Here are two graves, in which sleep the remains of 
the grand-parents of these two beautiful and lovely women. All 
around are cultivated fields clothed with rich crops, luxuriant with 
the promise of abundance. At its base flows the little creek, gliding 
and gabbling along over pure white sand. Sweet Alice ! How sad 
she seems ! She stood at the grave's side, and, looking down, seemed 
lost in pious 'reverie. Every feature spoke reverence for the dead. 
Her cousin, too, was silent ; and if not reverent, was not gay. He, 
their gallant, was respectfully silent, when Alice said, without lifting 
her eyes : 

"I wonder if La Salle ever stood here ? This is holy ground. No 
spot on earth has a charm for me like this. I am in the temple. I 
see the attentive, watchful priest feeding there (as she pointed) the 



288 THE MEMORIES OF 

holy fire, and yonder, with upturned eyes, the great lawgiver wor- 
shipping his god, as he comes up from his sleep, bringing day, 
warmth, light, and life. Was not this worship pure ? Was it not 
natural ? The sun came in the spring and awoke everything to life. 
The grass sprang from the ground and the leaves clothed the trees ; 
the birds chose their mates and the flowers gladdened the fields ; 
everything was redolent of life, and everything rejoiced. He went 
away in the winter, and death filled the land. There were no leaves, 
no grass, no flowers. All nature was gloomy in death. Could any 
but a god effect so much ? The sun was their god ; his temple was 
the sky, and his holy fire burned on through all time. Beautiful con- 
ception ! Who can say it is not the true faith ? " 

"To the imlettered mind, it was," answered the young gentle- 
man ; " because the imagination could only be aided by the material 
presented to the natural eye. Science opens the eye of faith. It 
teaches that the sun is only the instrument, and faith looks beyond 
for the Creator. To such the Indian's faith cannot be the true one. 
The ignorance of one sees God in the instrument, and his thoughts 
clothe him with the power of the Creator, and his heart worships 
God in sincerity, and to him it is the true faith. But to the educated, 
scientific man, who knows the offices of the sun, it appears as it is, 
only the creature of the unseen, unknown God, and to this God he 
lifts his adoration and prayers, and to him this is the true faith." 

"So, my philosopher, you believe, whatever lifts the mind to wor- 
ship God is the true faith ? " 

" You put it strongly. Miss, and I will answer by a question. If 
in sincerity we invoke God's mercy, can the means that prompt 
the heart's devotion, reliance, and love, be wrong ? His magnitude 
and perfection are a mystery to the untutored savage : he knows only 
what he sees. The earth to him, (as it was to the founders and 
patriarchs of our own faith,) is all the world. He has no idea that 
it is only one, and a small one of a numerous family, and can con- 
ceive only that the sun rules his world; gives life and death to every- 
thing upon the earth — but this inspires love and reverence for God. 
The scientific man sees in the sun only an attractive centre, and sees 
space filled with self-illuminating orbs, and reasoning from the known 
to the unknown, he believes these centres of attraction to planetary 
families, and the imagination stretches away through space filled with 
centres and revolving worlds, and each centre with its dependents 



FIFTY YEARS. 289 

revolving around one great centre, and this great centre he believes 
is God. His idea is only one step beyond the Indian's, and has 
only the same effect : it leads the heart to depend on and worship 
God." 

"You are a heretic, and must like a naughty boy be made to read 
your Bible and go to Sunday-school, and be lectured and taught the 
true faith. Fy ! fy ! shall the heathen go to heaven ? Where is the 
provision for him in the Bible ? What are we to do with missions ? 
If this be true, there is no need that we should be sending good men 
and dear, pious women to convert the Chinese, the Feejees, and the 
poor Africans so benighted that their very color is black, and the 
Australians, and New Georgians, to be roasted and eaten by the can- 
nibals there. If they worship God in sincerity, you say that is all?" 

" No, miss, faith without works is a futile reliance for heaven. It 
is the first necessity, and perhaps the next and greatest, is, to ' Do 
unto all what you would have all do unto you. ' These are the words 
of the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, and were taught four and 
a half centuries before Christ, yet we see Him teaching the same. 
This, as Confucius said, was the great cardinal duty of man, and all 
else was but a commentary upon this. This I fancy is all, at least it is 
very comprehensive. You tell me the traditions of the people who 
worshipped here say that this was a cardinal law unto them? " 

" You, sir, have lived too long among the heathen, if you are not 
one already. You are like an August peach in July: you are turning, 
and in a little while will be ripe. You talk, as Uncle Toney says, 
like a book, and to me, like a new book, for yours are new thoughts 
to me. Cousin, does he not astonish you? " 

"By no means ; true, they are new thoughts ; but they are natural 
thoughts, and I do not fear to listen to them — on the contrary, I 
could listen to them all day, and, Alice, I have often, very often, 
heard from you something like this." 

"Nonsense, cousin, nonsense; I am orthodox, you know, and a 
good girl and love to go to church, especially when I have a becom- 
ing new dress." 

" Here are the bones of our ancestors, if they were once animated 
with souls ; and I guess they were, particularly the old man, for I 
have heard many stories from old Toney, that convince me that he 
was a pretty hard one. How do we know that their spirits are not here 
l)yus now? Why is it deemed that there shall be no communication 
25 T 



290 THE MEMORIES OF 

between the living and the dead ? O ! how I want to ask all about 
the spirit-land. Wake up and reclothe thy bones and become again 
animated dust, and tell me thou, my great progenitor, the mys- 
teries of the grave, of heaven and hell. How quiet is the grave ? 
No response, and it is impious to ask what I have. O ! what is life 
which animates and harmonizes the elements of this mysterious crea- 
tion, man ! Life how imperious, and yet how kind ; it unites and 
controls these antagonistic elements, and they do not quarrel on his 
watch. Mingling and communing they go on through time, regard- 
less of the invitation of those from which they came to return. But 
when life is weary of his trust and guardianship, and throws up his 
commission, they declare war at once — dissolve, and each returns to 
his original. Death and corruption do their work, and life returns no 
more, and death is eternal, and the soul — answer ye dumb graves — 
did the soul come here? or went it with life to the great first cause ? 
or is here the end of all ; here, this little tenement? I shudder — is 
it the flesh, the instinct of life ; or is it the soul which shrinks with 
horror from this little portal through which it must pass to eternal 
bliss, or eternal — horrible ! Assist me to my horse, if you please. 
Come cousin, let us go and see old Uncle Toney — and, sir, he will 
teach you more philosophy than you ever dreamed of" 

"Who is Uncle Toney? miss," asked the stranger of the visiting 
cousin when he returned to aid her descent of the mound. 

"He is a very aged African, brought to this country from Caro- 
lina by our grandfather, in 1775, or earlier; he says there, were rem- 
nants of the Natchez in the country at that time, and the old man 
has many stories of these, and many more very strange ones of the 
doings of the whites who first came and settled the country. He 
retains pretty well his faculties, and, like most old people, is garrulous 
and loves a listener. He will be delighted with our visit." 

" Miss Alice, do you frequently visit Uncle Toney ? " 

" Very nearly every day. I have in my basket, here, something 
for the old man. Turn there, if you please — yonder by that light- 
ning-scared old oak and those top-heavy pecans is his cabin and has 
been for more than sixty years. Here was the local of my grand- 
father's house ; here was born my mother ; but all the buildings have 
long been gone save Uncle Toney's cabin. Think of the hopes, the 
aspirations, the blisses, the sorrows, the little world that once was 
here — all gone except Uncle Toney. In my childhood I used to 



^ 



FIFTY YEARS. 29I 

come here and go with him to the graves where we have been to-day, 
and have sat by them for hours listening to the stories he delights to 
tell of my grandfather and mother, until their very appearance seems 
familiar to my vision. I know that my grandfather was a small man, 
and a passionate man, and Toney sometimes tells me I am like him. 
His eye was gray — so is mine; his face sharper than round — so is 
mine, and sometimes my temper is terrible — so was his; " and she 
laughed again that same wild thrilling laugh as she gallopped up to 
the cabin and leaped down to greet the old man, who was seated at 
the door of his hut. beneath the shade of a catalpa, the trunk of which 
was worn smooth from his long leaning against it. He was very 
black and very fat. His wool was white as snow, and but for the 
seams in both cheeks, cut by the knife in observance of some ridicu- 
lous rite in his native land, would have been really fine-looking for 
one of his age. He arose and shook hands with the cousin, but did 
not approach the gentleman. He was evidently not pleased with his 
presence and was chary of his talk. 

"Ah! young missus," he said, when he received the basket, 
"you bring old Toney sometin good. You is my young missus, 
too ; but dis one is de las one. Dey is all married and gone but 
dis one." (This conversation was addressed to the cousin.) "All 
gone away but dis one, and when she marry dare will be nobody to 
fetch dis ole nigger good tings and talk to de ole man." 

" Uncle Toney, I don't intend to marry." 

"Ha, ha, ha! " laughed the old man, "berry well, berry well ! 
I hear dat from ebery one ob my young misses, and where is dey 
now? All done married and gone. You gwine to do jus as all on 
em hab done, byne by when de right one come. Ah ! may be he 
come now." 

" You old sinner, I have a great mind to pull your ears for you." 

"O no, missus, I don't know! I see fine young man dare; but 
maybe he come wid Miss Ann, and maybe he belong to her." 

"Uncle Toney, don't you remember I told you of a wild man 
away from the mountains, all clothed in skins, with a long, curly 
beard and hair over his shoulders as black as a stormy night? This 
is he." 

"Gosh! " said the venerable negro. " I mus shake his hand; 
but what hab you done wid your beard, your hair, and your huntiu- 
shirt?" 



292 THE MEMORIES OF 

"I have thrown them all into the fire, uncle. People among 
white people must not dress like Indians." 

" Dat 's a fac, young massa ; but I tell you Miss Alice was mity 
taken wid dera tings. She come here soon as she corned home, and 
told me all about 'em and all about you — how you could shoot de 
bow and how you could talk, and she said : ' O ! what would I not 
give to see him again ? ' " 

" Toney, if you don't shut up, I won't come to see you, or bring 
you any more good things. This young gentleman has come with 
us to see you, and wishes to hear you tell all about the Natchez, and 
to get you to show him the many things you have dug up on and 
around these mounds, and have you tell him all about the old people 
■who came here first and made all these big plantations and built all 
these great houses." 

''Well, Miss Alice, dis is Sunday, you know, and dem tings mus 
not be telled on Sunday, and den you and Miss Ann don't want ole 
nigger to talk. You go ride and talk wid de young gemman, and 
maybe to-morrow, or some week-day, young massa can come down 
from de great house wid de gun to shoot de s.quirrels along de way, 
and when he tired, den he can come and rest, and I can tell him all. 
Yes, young massa, I been live long time here. Me is mity old. All 
dem what was here when I comed wid ole massa is dead long time. 
Yes, dare aint one on em livin now, and dare chillin is old." 

" I shall be sure to come," said the young man, *' and suppose I 
bring with me these ladies ? ' ' 

" Neber you do dat, massa. I knows young folks ways too well 
for dat. Toney may talk, but dey neber will listen. Dey will talk 
wid one anoder, and Miss Alice been hear all de ole nigger's talk 
many a time, and she don't want to hear it ober and ober all de 
time ; and beside dat, young massa, sometimes when I tells bout de 
ole folks, she trimbles and cries. She 's got a mity soft heart bout 
some tings, and she tells me I mus tell you eberyting." 

" There now, Toney, you have said enough about me to make the 
gentleman think I am a very silly little girl." 

"God bress my young missus! " he said as he tenderly patted 
her head. " I wouldn't hurt your feelins for noffin. You is too 
good, Miss Alice. Toney lubed your mamma — Toney lubs you, 
and de day you is married and goes away, I want to go away too. 
I want to go yonder. Miss Alice, on de top ob dat mound, and lie 



FIFTY YEARS. 2^3 

down wid ole massa and missus. He told your pa to put me dar ; 
but your pa 's gone. O Miss Alice ! dey 's all gone but you and me 
and your brodder, and he don't care for Toney, and maybe he will 
trow him out in de woods like a dog when he die." Tears stole 
down the black face of the venerable man, and the eyes of Alice 
filled — and then she laughed the shrill, fearful laugh, and rode 
rapidly away. 

She was singing and walking hurriedly the gallery, when the 
stranger and her cousin came leisurely into the yard. 

"Your cousin, Miss Ann-, has a strange laugh." 

" Indeed she has, sir; but we who know her understand it. She 
never laughs that unearthly laugh when her heart is at ease. I doubt 
if you have ever met such a person. I think the world has laut one 
Alice. She is very young, very impressible, and some think very 
eccentric, very passionate and romantic to frenzy. There is some- 
thing which impels me to tell you — but no, I have no right to do 
so. But this I must tell you ; for you cannot have been in the house 
here so long without observing it. There is no congeniality between 
herself and brother; indeed, very little between her and any of her 
family. She is alone. She is one by herself ; yes, one by herself 
in the midst of many ; for the family is a large one. But remember, 
there is none like Alice. Be gentle to her and pity her ; and pity 
her mo.st when you hear that strange laugh." 

There was music in the drawing-room, soft and gentle, and the 
accompanying voice was tremulous with suppressed emotion. Grad- 
ually it swells in volume until it fills the spacious apartment, and the 
clear notes from the tender trill rose grandly in full, clear tones, full 
of pathetic melody, and now they almost shriek. They cease — and 
the laugh, hysterical and shrill, echoes through the entire house. 
The judge was silent ; but a close observer might have seen a slight 
contraction of the lips, and a slighter closing of the eyes. A moment 
after Alice entered the room, and there was a glance exchanged 
between her brother and herself. There was in it a meaning only 
for themselves. 

"You have been riding, sir," he said to his guest, " and my sister 
tells me to the mound at the White Apple village. To those curious 
in such legends as are connected with its history, it is an interesting 
spot. All I know in relation to these, I acquired from a dreamy and 
solitary man employed by my father to fit myself and brother for 
25* 



294 THE MEMORIES OF 

college. He read French, and was fond of tracing all he could find 
in the writings of the historians of the first settlement of Louisiana 
and Mississippi, and of the history, habits, and customs of the abori- 
gines of the country. He knew something of the adventures of De 
Soto and La Salle, and something of the traditions of the Natchez. 
He was a melancholy man, and perished by his own hand in the 
chamber that you occupy. My sister is curious in such matters, and 
from her researches in some old musty volumes she has found in 
the possession of an old European family, she has made quite a his- 
tory of the Natchez, and from the old servants much of that of the 
first white or English occupants of this section. For myself, I have 
little curiosity in that way. My business forbids much reading of 
that kind, and indeed much of anything else, and I am glad that my 
tastes and my business accord. I would not exchange one crop of 
cotton grown on the village-field, for a perfect knowledge of the 
history of every Indian tribe upon the continent." 

" I am no antiquarian, sir. A life on a plantation I suppose must 
be most irksome and monotonous to a young lady, unless she should 
have some resource besides her rural employments." 

"Our only amusements, sir," said Alice, "are reading, riding, 
and music, with an occasional visit to a neighbor. I ride through 
the old forest and consult the great patriarchal trees, and they tell 
me many strange stories. When the ruthless axe has prostrated one 
of these forest monarchs, my good palfrey waits for me, and I count 
the concentric circles and learn his age. Some I have seen which 
have yielded to man's use or cupidity who have looked over the 
younger scions of the woods, and upon the waters of the mighty 
river a thousand years. ' ' 

"Indeed, miss," replied the guest, "I had not supposed the nat- 
ural life of any of our forest trees extended beyond three, or at most 
four centuries." 

"The tulip or poplar-tree and the red-oak in the rich loam of 
these hills live long and attain to giant proportions. The vines which 
cling in such profusion to many of these are commensurate with 
them in time. They spring up at their bases and grow with them : 
the tree performing the kindly office of nurse, lifting them in her 
arms and carrying them until their summits, with united leaves, seem 
to kiss the clouds. They live and cling together through tempests and 
time until worn out with length of days, when they tumble and fall 



FIFTY YEARS. 295 

to the earth together, and together die. We all, Flora and Fauna, 
go down to the bosom of our common mother to rest in death. I 
love the companionship of the forest. There is an elevation of soul 
in this communion with incorruptible nature : there is sincerity and 
truth in the hills and valleys — in the trees and vines, and music — 
grand orchestral music — in the moaning of the limbs and leaves, 
played upon by the hurrying winds. I have prayed to be a savage. 
and to live in the woods." 

"You are as usual, sister, very romantic to-night." 

" By and by, brother, I shall forget it I presume. I am human, 

and shall soon die, or live on till time hardens my nature, or sordid 

pursuits plough from my heart all its sympathies, and old age finds 

me gloating over the gains of laborious care and penurious meanness. 

" * To such vile uses we must come at last.' " 

"You draw a sad picture, miss, for old age. Do not the gentler 
virtues of our nature ever ripen with time ? Is it the alchemist who 
always turns the sweets of youth to the sours of age ? There are 
many examples in every community to refute your position. I would 
instance the venerable negro we visited to-day. He wept as he 
placed his trembling hand upon your head. There was surely 
nothing ascetic or sordid in his feelings." 

'* Uncle Toney is an exception, sir. The affectionate memories 
he has of our family, and especially of my mother and father, redeems 
him from the obloquy of his race. His heart is as tender as his con- 
duct is void of offense. He was a slave. God had ordained him for 
his situation. He had not the capacity to aspire beyond his lot, or 
to contrast it with his master's. Contented to render his service, and 
satisfied with the supply of his wants from the hands of him he served 
— he had a home, and all the comforts his nature required. He has it 
still ; but I know he is not as contented as when he was my father's 
slave. God bless the old man ! He shall never want while I have 
anything, and should I see him die, he shall sleep where he wished 
to-day." 

" By our grandfather, I suppose, Alice ? " 

" Yes, my brother, by our grand-parents. They told him it should 
be so. Ah ! there are no distinctions in the grave ; white skin and 
black skin alike return to dust, and the marl of the earth is composed 



296 THE MEMORIES OF 

alike of the bones of all races, and their properties seem to be the same. 
I, too, wish to sleep there. It is a romantically beautiful spot, and 
its grand old traditions make it holy ground. How its associations 
hallow it ! Imagination peoples it with those bold old red men 
who assembled in the temple to worship the holy fire — emblematic 
of their faith — humbling their fierce natures and supplicating for 
mercy. I go there and I feel in the touch of the air that it is peo- 
pled with the spirits of the mighty dead, surrounding and blessing 
me for my memory of, and love for, their extinct race. ' ' 

' ' Bravo, sister ! What an enthusiast ! You, sir, have some knowl- 
edge of the Indians. Do they stir the romance of your nature as 
that of my baby sister ? ' ' 

The glance from her eye was full of scorn : it flashed with almost 
malignant hate as she rose from her seat, and taking the arm of her 
cousin she swept from the room, audibly whispering "baby sister" 
in sneering accents. 

"Woman's nature is a strange study, my young friend. I have 
several sisters and they are all strange, each in her peculiar way. 
They are remarkable for the love they bear their husbands, and yet 
they all have a pleasure in tormenting them, and are never so 
unhappy, as when they see these happy. This younger sister has a 
nature all her own. I do not think she shares a trait with another 
living being. Wild, yet gentle ; the eagle to some, to some the 
dove. Quick as the lightning in her temper — as fervid, too; a 
heart to hate intensely, and yet to melt in love and worship its 
object ; but would slay it, if she felt it had deceived her. Always 
searching into the history of the past, and always careless of the 
future." 

"You have drawn something of the character of a Spanish woman. 
Their love and their hate is equally fieice; and both easily excited, 
they are devoted in all their passions. I have thought that this grew 
from the secluded life they live. Ardency is natural to the race, 
and this restrained makes their lives one long romance. Their 
world is all of imagination. The contacts 6f real life they never 
meet outside of their prison-homes, and the influence of experience 
is never known. They are seen through bars, are sought through bars, 
they love through bars — and the struggle is, to escape from these 
restraints ; and the moral of the act or means for its accomplishment, 
or the object to be attained, never enters the mind. Such natures 



FIFTY YEARS. 297 

properly reared to know the world, to see it, hear it, and suffer it, 
tunes all the attributes of the mind and heart to make sweet music. 
Nothing mellows the heart like sorrow ; nothing so softens the obdu- 
racy of our natures as experience. None, sir, man or woman, are 
fitted for the world without the experiences its contact brings. These 
experiences are teachings, and the bitter ones the best. To be happy, 
we must have been miserable ; it is the idiosyncracy of the mind, to 
judge by comparison ; and the eternal absence of grief leaves the 
mind unappreciative of the incidents and excitements which bring to 
him or her who have suffered, such exquisite enjoyment. The rue of 
life is scarcely misery to those who have never tasted its ambrosia." 

"You are young, sir, thus to philosophize, and must have seen and 
experienced more than your years would indicate." 

*' Some, sir, in an incident see all of its characters that the world 
in a lifetime may present. They suffer, and they enjoy with an 
acuteness unknown to most natures; and in youth gain the expe- 
riences and knowledge they impart, while most of the world forget 
the pain and the pleasure of an incident with its evanescence. With 
such, experience teaches nothing. These progress in the world 
blindly and are always stumbling and falling." 

"The ladies have retired — shall we imitate their example, sir? 
This will light you to your chamber; good night." 

Alone, and kindly shielded with the darkness, the adventurer lay 
thoughtful and sleepless. Here are two strange beings. There is in 
the one angelic beauty animated with a soul of giant proportions, 
large in love, large in hate, and grandly large in its aspirations; 
and yet it is chained to a rock with fetters that chafe at every motion. 
The other cold, emotionless, with a reserved severity of manner, 
which is the offspring of a heart as malignant and sinister as Satan 
himself may boast of. They hate each other, but how different that 
hatred ! The one is an emotion fierce and fiery but without malice ; the 
other malicious and revengeful. One is the hatred of the recipient 
of an injury who can forgive ; the other the hatred of one who 
has inflicted an injury with calculation. Such never forgive. And 
this I arn sure is the relation of this brother and sister. Deprived 
when yet young of the fostering care of a mother, scarcely remem- 
bering her father, she has been the ward of this cold, hard being, 
whose pleasure it has been to thwart every wish of this lovely being: 
to hate her because she is lovely, and to aggravate into fury her 



298 THE MEMORIES OF 

resentments, and to sour every generous impulse of her extraordinary 
nature. What a curse to have so sensitive a being subjected to the 
training of so cold and malignant a one ! 

There is no natural affection. The heart is born a waste: its loves, 
its hates are of education and association ; and the responsibility for 
the future of a child rests altogether with those intrusted with its 
rearing and training. The susceptibilities only are born with the 
heart, and these may be cultivated to good or evil, as imperceptibly 
as the light permeates the atmosphere. These capacities or suscepti- 
bilities are acute or obtuse as the cranium's form will indicate, and 
require a system suited to each. Attention soon teaches this : the 
one grows and expands beautifully with the slightest attention ; the 
other is a fat soil, and will run to weeds, without constant, close, and 
deep cultivation, and its production of good fruit is in exact propor- 
tion with its fertility and care. It gives the most trouble but it yields 
the greatest product. And here in that warm, impulsive heart is the 
fat soil. O ! for the hand to weed away all that is noxious now 
rooting there. That look, that whispered bitterness was the fruit of 
wicked wrong — I know it ; the very nature prompting there would 
give the sweetest return to justice, kindness, and love. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ROMANCE CONTINUED. 

Father Confessor — Open Confession — The Unread Will — Old Toney's 
Narrative — Squirrel Shooting — The Farewell Unsaid — Brothers- 
in-Law — Farewell Indeed. 

WHEN the morrow came, the clouds were weeping and the 
damp was dripping from every leaf, and gloomy rifts of 
spongy vapor floated lazily upon the breeze, promising a wet and 
very unpleasant day. These misty periods rarely endure many hours 
in the autumn, but sometimes they continue for days. The atmos- 
phere seems half water, and its warm damp compels close-housing, 
to avoid the clammy, sickly feeling met beyond the portals. At 



FIFTY YEARS. 299 

such times, time hangs heavily, and every resource sometimes fails to 
dispel the gloom and ennui consequent upon the weather; conversa- 
tion will pall ; music cease to delight, and reading weary. To stand 
and watch the rain through the wmdow- panes, to lounge from the 
drawing-room to your chamber, to drum with your fingers upon the 
table — to beat your brain for a thought which you vainly seek to 
weave into rhyme in praise of your inamorata — all is unavailing. 
The rain is slow but ceaseless, and the hours are days to the unem- 
ployed mind. We hum a tune and whistle to hurry time, but the 
indicating fingers of the tediously ticking clock seems stationary, 
and time waits for fair weather. The ladies love their chambers, and 
sleeping away the laggard hours, do not feel the oppression of a slow, 
continuous, lazy rain. 

The morning has well-nigh passed, and the drawing-room is still 
untenanted. The judge was busy in his office, looking over papers and 
accounts, seemingly unconscious of the murky day; perhaps he had 
purposely left this work for such a day — wise judge — a solitary man, 
unloving, and unloved ; hospitable by freaks, sordid by habit, and 
mean by nature. Yet he was wise in his way ; devoid of sentiment 
or sympathy as a grind-stone, his wit was as sharp as his heart was 
cold. Absorbed in himself, the outside world was nothing to him. 
He had work, gainful work for all weathers, and therefore no feeling 
for those who suffered from the weather or the world, if it cost him 
nothing in pence. He was the guardian of his baby sister ; but all 
of her he had in his heart was a care that she should not marry, 
before he was ready to settle her estate. The interest he felt in 
her, was his commissions for administering her property with a 
legitimate gain earned in the use of her money. 

The guest of this strange man was restless, he knew not why ; there 
were books in abundance, and their authors' names were read over 
and over again as he rummaged the book-cases he knew not for what. 
First one and then another was pulled out from its companions, the 
title-page read and replaced again, only to take another. Idly he 
was turning the pages of one, when a voice surprised him and sweetly 
inquired at his elbow if he found amusement or edification in his 
employment. "I must apologize for my rudely leaving you last 
night. I hope I am incapable of deceit or unnecessary concealments. 
I was hurt and angry, and I went away in a passion. .Yours is a 
gentle nature, you do not suffer your feelings to torture and master 



300 THE MEMORIES OF 

you. I should not, but I am incapable of the effort necessary to 
their control. It is best with me that they burn out, but their very 
ashes lie heavily upon my heart. Our clime is a furnace, and her 
children are flame, at least, strange sir, some of them are a self- 
consuming flame. I feel that is my nature. Is not this an honest 
confession ? I could explain further in extenuation of my strange 
nature. It was not my nature until it was burned into my very 
soul. I am very young, but the bitterness of my experiences makes 
me old, at least in feeling. But you are not my father confessor — 
then why do I talk to you as to one long known? Because — 
perhaps — but never mind the reason. I know my cousin has whis- 
pered something to you of me; my situation, my nature — is it not 
so?" 

*' Ah ! you would be my father confessor. You must not interro- 
gate, but if you would know, ask your cousin." 

"0 ! no, I could not. Is it not strange that woman will confide to 
the strange man, what she will not to the kindred woman ? Woman 
will not sympathize with woman ; she goes not to her for comfort, 
for sympathy, for relief. Is this natural? Men lean on one 
another, women only on man. Is this natural? Is it instinctive? 
or an acquired faculty ? Do not laugh at me, I am very foolish and 
very sad ; such a day should sadden every one. But my cousin is 
very cheerful, twitters and flits about like an uncaged canary, and is 
as cheerful when it rains all day, as when the sun in her glory glad- 
dens all the earth and everything thereon. I am almost a Natchez, 
for I worship the sun. How I am running on ! You are gentle and 
kind, are you not ? You are quick, perceptive — you have seen 
that I am not happy — sympathize, but do not pity me. That is a 
terrible struggle between prudence and inclination. There, now I 
am done — don't you think me very foolish? " 

" Miss Alice — (will you allow me this familiarity?) " 

" Yes, Avhen we are alone; not before cousin or my man brother." 
(She almost choked with the word.) "Not before strangers — we 
are not strangers when alone. You read my nature, as I do yours, 
and we are not strangers when alone. It is not long acquaintance 
which makes familiar friends. The mesmeric spark will do more 
than years of intercommunication, where there is no congeniality — 
and do it in a little precious moment. The bloody arrow we held in 
common was an electric chain. I learned you at the plucking of 



FIFTY YEARS. 30I 

that arrow from the cotton bale — in your strange, wild garb ; but 
never mind — what were you going to say? " 

** I was going to say that our acquaintance was very brief, but what 
I have seen or heard, I will not tell to you or to any one. Your 
imagination is magnifying your sufferings. You want a heart to 
confide in. You have brothers-in-law, wise and strong men. 

"That, for the whole of them," she said, as she snapped her 
fingers. "Their wives are my sisters, some of them old enough to 
be my mother, but they and their husbands are alike — sordid. The 
hope of money is even more debasing than the hoarding. Do you 
understand me ? I must speak or my heart will burst. Are you a 
wizzard that you have so drawn me on? Dare I speak? Is it 
maidenly that I should ? There is a spell upon me. Go to your 
chamber — there is a spy upon me; I am seen, and I fear I have been 
overheard ; go to your chamber — here, take this book and read it 
if you never have — dinner is at hand, and after dinner — , but let 
each hour provide for itself, — at dinner, — well, well, adieu." 

She was in the drawing-room, and again the soft melody of half- 
suppressed music, scarcely audible, yet every note distinct, floated 
to his chamber, and the guest scarcely breathed that he might hear. 
There was something so plaintive, so melting in the tones that they 
saddened as well as delighted. How the heart cdn melt out at the 
finger-points when touching the keys of a sweetly-toned instrument ! 
It is thrown to the air, and in its plaint makes sweet music of its 
melancholy. Like harmonious spirits chanting in their invisibility, 
making vocal the very atmosphere, it died away as though going to 
a great distance, and stillness was in the whole house. He stole 
gently to the door. There seated was Alice ; her elbow on her instru- 
ment, and her brow upon her hand. The bell rang for dinner. The 
repast is over, and a glass of generous wine sent the rose to the 
cheeks of Alice, but enlivened not her eye. Her heart was sad : the 
eye spoke it but too plainly, and she looked beautiful beyond com- 
parison. The eye of the stranger was rivetted upon that drooping 
lid and more than melancholy brow. 

His situation was a painful one. More than once had he caught 
the quick, suspicious glance of the judge flash upon him. He was 
becoming an object of interest to more than one in the house ; but 
how different that interest ! How at antipodes the motives of that 
interest ! He knew too much, and yet he wanted to know more. 
26 



302 THE MEMORIES OF 

He was left alone in the drawing-room with the timid, modest little 
cousin. It rained on, and the weather seemed melancholy, and their 
feelings were in unison with the weather. 

" I shall leave, I believe, miss, as soon as the rain will permit. I 
presume I may go down to the city without fear." 

" You will find it but a sorry place, sir. All the hotels are closed 
and everybody is out of town save the physicians, and the poor who 
are unable to get away. The gloom of the desolated place is enough 
to craze any one. I hope you do not find your stay disagreeable in 
this house ? ' ' 

" I will not attempt to deceive you, miss. I cannot say whyj but 
I feel uncomfortable — not at my ease. It were needless for me to 
repeat it; I am sure you know the cause." 

"Perhaps I do, sir; and still I cannot see in that sufficient cause 
for your going away. Perhaps, sir, we are not thinking of the same 
cause," she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. 

" I particularly allude to what you yourself communicated to me. 
I perceive Miss Alice is very unhappy, and I also am apprehensive 
that I may in some way be the cause of this. " 

"I will tell you, sir, any special attention on your part to Alice 
will enrage her brother. From motives known to himself, he is very 
much opposed to her marrying any one. His reasons as given are 
that she is so peculiar in her disposition that she would only increase 
her own misery in making her husband miserable, which her eccen- 
tric nature would certainly insure. I have heard that he has some- 
times had a thought of carrying her to an asylum for the insane. 
The world, however, is not charitable enough to believe this the true 
reason. The judge is very grasping, and he has in his hands Alice's 
fortune. Some of his own family suppose he desires the use of it as 
long as possible. There are many hard things said of him in relation 
to his influencing his mother to leave him the lion's share of her 
estate. This very home was intended for Alice, and though he had 
not spoken to his mother for years, in her last hours he came with a 
prepared will and insisted on her signing it. She feared him (most 
people do) and affixed her name to the fatal document, which report 
says was never read to her. After that she could not bear the pres- 
ence of Alice, saying in her delirium : ' My poor baby will hate me ; 
I have turned her from her home.' Alice has learned all this, and 



FIFTY YEARS. 3O3 

she has upbraided him with his conduct ; for once provoked she does 
not even fear him." 

"Why do not her brothers-in-law inquire into this? They are 
equally interested in the matter it seems to me." 

" Ah, sir ! they are hoping that he may do them justice in his will. 
I am sure this is the understanding with at least one of them, and 
neither of them will hazard a loss to protect the rights of Alice. 
Large expectations are strong inducements to selfishness. I am dis- 
closing family matters, sir ; but I have done so from a good motive. 
It is but half disclosed to you ; but the rest I must not tell. You are 
not so dull as not from what I have said to be able to shape your 
conduct. Alice is coming." 

The rain had ceased, and for two days the genial sun had drank 
up the moisture from the land, which underfoot was dry again. The 
autumn had come, and the earth groaned with the rich products of 
this favored land. The cotton-fields were whitening, and the yellow 
corn's pendant ears hung heavily from their supporting stocks. Fat 
cattle in the shade of the great trees switched away the teasing flies 
as they lazily ruminated. The crows were cawing and stealing from 
their bursting shells the rich pecan nuts, and the black-birds flew in 
great flocks over the fields. In the hickory-woods the gray squirrel 
leaped from tree to tree, hunting for, and storing away for winter's 
use, his store of nuts and acorns, or running along the rail-fence to 
find a hiding-place when frightened from his thieving in the corn- 
fields. The quail whistled for his truant mate in the yellow stubble, 
and the carrion-bird — black and disgusting — wheeled in circles, 
lazily, high up in the blue above. There was in everything the 
appearance of satisfaction ; abundance was everywhere, and the yel- 
lowing of the leaves and the smoky horizon told that the year was 
waning into winter. 

Under the influences of the scene and the season the visitor of the 
judge was sober and reflective as he strolled through the woods, gun 
in hand, little intent upon shooting. The quail whirred away from 
his feet ; the funny little squirrel leaped up the tree-side and peeped 
around at him passing ; but he heeded not these, and went forward 
to find the cabin of old Toney. He found the old negro in his usual 
seat at the foot of his favorite tree, upon his well-smoothed and 
sleek wooden stool. 

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed Toney. " You come dis time widout 



304 THE MEMORIES OF 

Miss Alice. Why she not come wid you ? Yoi not want somebody 
to turn de squirrel for you ? May be you bring de ole man more 
dan one dar? " 

" It was too great a walk for her, Uncle Toney, and then she does 
not like my company well enough to pay so much fatigue for it." 

Toney laughed again. *' Too much walk, indeed, she walk here 
most ebery day, wid her little bonnet in her hand and basket too, 
wid someting good for Toney. When sun yonder and de shade 
cobber de groun ; den she set dare, (pointing to the grass which grew 
luxuriantly near by) and talk to de ole man and lissen so still like a 
bird hiding, when I tell her all bout de ole folks, dat is buried dare, 
and how we all corned away from de States when de ole war driv us 
off, not General Jackson's war. No, sir. General Washington's war, 
de ole war of all — and den, young massa, you ought to see her. 
She's mity putty den, she is — face red and smove, and she little 
tired and she look so like ole missus yonder, when she was a gall, 
and dem English red coats comes out from Charleston, to de ole 
place to see her. Dat 's a long time ago, young massa." 

" Uncle Toney, how old are you? " 

" Moss a hundred, young massa; I don 't know zackly — but I 
great big boy when I corned from de ole country, tudder side ob de 
sea — my country, massa. W^hen I comed to Charleston, I was so 
high — (holding his hand some four feet from the earth) yet I was 
big nuff to plow, when ole massa, de fadder of him hurried yonder, 
bied me and tuck me up to de high hills ob Santee. Den, sir, my 
massa who brought me here, was gone to de country whar de white 
folks first comed from, England. I nebber see him till de ole war, 
when his fadder been dead two year, den he comed home one night 
and all de family but one had gone to de war. He not talk much, 
but look mity sorry. My ole missus was a pretty gall, den, live 
close by us, and it not long afore dey gets married, and den many 
ob de nabors come and dey hab long talk. Dey 's all comes to de 
greement to come away from de country, fraid ob de war, and all de 
fadders ob all de nabors here take all der niggers and der stock and 
go up de country to de riber dat 's named de Holsten, and dare dey 
built heep flat boats, and in de spring dey starts down de riber. 
Some ob de boats hab hogs on 'em, some bosses, some cows, some 
niggers, some corn and meat, and some de white families. Dar was 
boff de grandfadder ob Miss Alice, and her fadder. He was small. 



FIFTY YEARS. 3O5 

not grown, and old massa, her modder's fadder, was young wid young 
wife, but dey all made him captain. 

" We was long time comin down de riber, and we had to fite de 
Injuns long time at de place dey calls Mussel Shoals. Some ob de 
boats got on de ground, and one on em we had to leave wid de hogs 
on it. De bullets come from the Injuns so hot dat we all had to get 
out into de water and go to anudder boat and get away from dar. 
Dem was the wust Injuns I eber seed. But we got away and we 
runned all night. Nex day Miss Alice's fadder was on de top ob de 
boat ob his fadder when Injun shoot him in de back from de woods, 
and he buried wid dat bullet in him up yonder to de great house. 
Well, young massa, we comed one day into a big riber, and dar we 
stopt one hole week, and de massa and some on de ress on em got 
out and luck at de country, but dey not like him and we started 
agin, and de nex day we gits into di Massasippi, and in two days 
more we comed to de place dey called New Madrid, and here stopt 
agin. 

" De land was mity level and rich, and/ all de men said dey 
would stop here and live. De people what lived here was Spanish, 
and some niggers and Injuns, and dey talked a lingo we did 'nt 
know. Dere was a nigger who could talk American, and he comed 
one night and tuck ole massa out and telled him de Spaniards was 
gwine to rob dem all, and dat dey would kill all on de white folks, 
and take all de niggers and stock, and dey was gwine to do it de fus 
dark night. Dis larmed us all, and dat night we slipt off, and when 
mornin comed we was way down de riber and gwine ahead I tell you. 
We nebber stopt any more till we got to de mouth of Cole's Creek. 
Dare de fadder of Miss Alice's fadder stopt, and said he would stay 
dare. Ole massa seed an Injun dat tole him ob dis place and dey 
started true de cane, dey was gone long time, but when dey comed 
back, ole massa got us all ready and away we went and nebber stopt 
till we comed to the mouth of St. Catharine's, right ober dar. Dar 
we landed and unloaded de boats, and in a week we was all camped 
up dar whare de big percan is, and right dar de ole man raise all his 
family — and dar he and ole missus died. 

" All dis country was full ob deer and Injuns, and dem hills yon- 
der was all covered wid big canes and de biggest trees you ebber 
seed. Yonder, all round dat mound we cleaned a field and planted 
corn and indigo ; and ober yonder was another settlement ; and 
26* U 



306 THE MEMORIES OF 

yonder, down de creek was another ; and on de cliffs was another, 
and den dare corned a heap ob people and stopt at Natchez and St. 
Catharine, and all us people a most, young massa, about here is come 
ob dem ; but dare was trouble moss all de time twixt em. 

" Ole massa was made de Governor, by somebody, and dare was 
another man made a Governor, too, and he git a company one night 
and corned down here ; but somebody had tole old massa, and dat 
day he tell me, and we went down to de riber under de cliff war was 
some cane and he tole me he was gwine to stay dar, and I muss bring 
him sometin to eat ebery day, but I mus'nt tell whar he was, not 
eben to ole missus, for dey would scare her and make her tell on 
him. Shore nuff, dat night here dey comed, a many a one on em, 
and dey went right into de great house and serched it and ebery 
whar, but dey was fooled bad, and den dey tuck me and put a rope 
round my neck and hung me to de lim of a tree what is dead and 
gone now, right out dar. But wen I was moss dead, dey let me 
down and axed me whar was de Governor. I swared I did 'nt know, 
and dey pulled me up agin ; and dis time dey thought dey had 
killed me, shore nuff. It was a long time before I corned to, and 
den I tole um I could show um whare he was, and we started. 

" De cane was mity thick, and we went up one hill and down 
another till we comed to dat big hill ober de creek dar. De todder 
side ob it is mity steep, but de cane was all de way down it. I 
was a good ways before em and I jumpt down de steepest place and 
way I went through de cane down de hill, and de way dey made de 
bullets whistle was euros. But I got away and went round and told 
de ole man all dey had done. When I went back all de black peo- 
ple was gone and missus said dese men had tuck em off. De nex 
nite dey cotch me and carried me to whar our black folks was, and 
den we all started in a boat down de riber, and when we got to New 
Orleans we got on a skiff and run down de riber to a big ship and 
went out to sea dat night and landed at Pensacola, and dare dat 
wicked ole man sold us to de Spanish." 

" Uncle Toney, who was that wicked old man? " 

"Ah! my young massa, I musn't tell, cause his grandchillen is 
great folks here now, and Miss Alice telled me I musn't tell all I 
knows. Dey aint sponsible, she says, for what dere grandfadder did. 
But I tell you he was a mity bad man. Well, I staid at Pensacola 
two years wid my ole oman ; and we could talk wid de Injuns, and 



FIFTY YEARS. 307 

one day two Injuns dat I knowd out here corned to my cabin, and 
day tailed me dat ole massa was gone way from here and missus was 
here by herself and had nobody to help her. So I makes a bargain 
wid dese Injuns to come here wid me and my old oman. One Sat- 
urday night we started to go and see some ob our people dat was 
bout ten miles from whar we was ; but we neber stopped. We tuck 
to de woods, and we killed a deer wheneber we was himgry. De 
Injuns, you know, can always do dat. We was a mity long time 
comin ; but at last we got here, and den it was moss a year arter dat 
before ole massa come. Den dar was more trouble. One day dar 
comed fifty men and tuck ole massa, and dey tied him and den begin 
to rob de house. Dey had all de silver and sich like, when de cap- 
tain comed in, and he did cuss mity hard and made em put it every 
bit down, and march out. Ole missus she thanked him mitily ; but 
dey carried ole massa off to New Orleans. 

"Dar was great trouble wid de nabors. Dey comed and talked 
bout it ; and one day when ole massa was gone bout a mont, when 
dey was all dar, who should step into de house but ole massa. He 

was fash, I tell you he was. Dar was old Mr. E , and Mr. 

O , and Mr. T , and a heap more, and dey all put der heads 

togeder and talked. One day ole massa come to me and sez he : 
' Toney, you mus get on my black boss and go down to de bluffs. 
Watch down de riber, and when you see two big boats comin up — 
big keel-boats wid plenty ob men on em — way down de riber, jes 
come as hard as de boss can bring you here and let me know it.' 

" I knowd dar was trouble comin, young massa; for I seed Miss 
Alice's papa comin wid plenty ob de nabors wid him. He was a tall 
man, and neber talk much. Miss Alice's raodder was a young oman 
den, and I knowd dey was gwine to be married. When she seed 
him wid his gun and so many men she gins to cry. Well, I was 
gone quick, and moss as soon as I got to de cliff, I see de boats way 
down de riber, pulling long by de shore. I made dat boss do his 
best home, when I told old massa: ' Dey 's comin, sir ! ' He sorter 
grin, and git on his boss and gallop away down toward St. Catha- 
rine's. He telled me to come on, and I comed. When we got to 
de mouth ob de creek dar was fifty men dar, all wid der guns, settin 
on de ground, and ole massa talkin to em. Way moss night de 
boats comed in sight. Den all de men hide in de cane, and massa 
tell me : ' Toney, you call em and tell em to come to de shore.' I 



308 THE MEMORIES OP 

tailed em, and dey corned and tied der boats to de trees, and de 
captain and some ob de men jumped on de land, and walked out, 
and corned close to me. 

" De fuss ting dey knowd, bang ! bang ! bang ! go de guns, and de 
captain fall. De men all run for de boats, and de men on de boats 
gin to shoot too. I runs wid all my might, and ole massa shout to 
his friends to fire agin, and two men untying de boats fall. Den dey 
cut de ropes wid an axe, and shove out de boats into de riber, and 
pull em away wid de oars too far to hit em. Ole massa comes out 
ob de cane and goes to de men what is lying on the ground. Dar 
was six on em, and four was dead sure nuff. Two was jus wounded, 
and one of dese was de captain. Him de same man what make his 
men put down de silber and tings dey was takin from ole missus. 
Den dey carry all on em to de grate house and bury de dead ones. 
De captain and de oder wounded man was tuck into de house, and 
ole missus she knowd de captain, and she cried mitily bout his bein 
shot. Well, he talk plenty bout his wife and modder, and Miss 
Alice's modder nurse him ; but he died, and his grave 's yonder wid 
ole massa and missus. De oder man he got well and went away, 
and berry soon arter dat Miss Alice's fadder and modder got married. 
Dar come de judge. He hab seen you, and he ride out ob de road 
to come see you." 

" Toney, I shall come to see you again, and you must tell me rnore 
about the family and these people about here; you must tell me 
everything." 

"You musn't tell anybody I tell you anyting. De judge mity quare 
man ; he don't like for people to know all I knows." 

The judge rode up, and Toney with great respect arose and saluted 
him. " Ah ! " said he, " you have found this old hermit, have you? 
Toney is the chronicle of the neighborhood — a record of its history 
from the day of its first settlement. I hope he has amused you. 
He is upwards of ninety years old, and retains all his faculties in a 
remarkable degree." 

" I have been quite entertained with his history of the descent of 
the river with your ancestors. He seems to remember every inci- 
dent, and says your father was wounded at the Muscle Shoals on the 
Tennessee River." 

" He is quite right, sir. It was a perilous trip. My grandfather 
was- a man of wonderful energy and determination. He pioneered 



FIFTY YEARS. 3O9 

the ancestors of almost every family in this vicinage to this place. 
There was a large grant of land from the Spanish Government made 
here and divided among his followers, every foot of which is in the 
possession of their descendants to-day, except perhaps one thousand 
acres which were swindled from my family by a most iniquitous 
decision of a jury, influenced by an artful old Yankee lawyer. This 
spot here, sir, was the nucleus of the first settlement which in a few 
years spread over the country." 

" This county I believe, sir, was once represented in the State of 
Georgia as the County of Bourbon, at the time this State with Ala- 
bama constituted a part of that State." 

"My father was elected to represent the county, but he never took 
his seat. We continued to be governed by the laws of Spain which 
we found in force here until the line between Florida and the United 
States was established — indeed until the American Government 
extended its jurisdiction in the form of a territorial government 
over the country. I am riding to my sisters. You will have fine 
shooting if you will go through yonder piece of woods. Every tree 
seems to have a squirrel upon it. We will meet again at tea. Adieu, 
till then." 

" He been watchin you. Better go, young massa." 

"You don't appear, Toney, to like your young master." 

" Him not good to Miss Alice. He got plenty sisters ; but he only 
lub two, and dey don't lub anybody but just him. Him not like 
his fadder nor ole massa yonder. He bring plenty trouble to massa 
and to his modder. No, me don't like him. Miss Alice know 
him all." 

" Well, Toney, no one shall ever know you have told me anything. 
Some of these days I will come and see you again. Good by." 

"God bress you, young massa! Kill ole nigger some squirrels. 
Tell Miss Alice dey is for me, and she will make some on de little 
ones run down here wid em. Good by, massa." 

Slowly the young man wended his way to the mansion ; but remem- 
bering the negro's request, he shot several squirrels, and gave them 
as requested. 

" Then you have been to see Uncle Toney. Did he give you any 
of his stories? Like all old persons, he loves to talk about hus 
younger days." \ 

" I was quite interested in his narrative of the trip down the river, 



3IO THE MEMORIES OF 

when your grandparents and your father emigrated to this part of the 
country." 

" Did he tell you his Indian ghost story?" 

" He did not. He was quite communicative ; but your brother 
came and arrested his conversation." A shade fell upon the features 
of the beautiful creature as she turned away to send the squirrels to 
Toney. 

"These are beautiful grounds, Miss Ann." 

** Yes, sir ; there has been great care bestowed upon them, and 
they make a fairy-land for my cousin who in fair weather is almost 
always found here in these walks and shady retreats afforded by these 
old oaks and pecans." 

"There is something very beautiful, miss, in the attachment of 
Miss Alice to Uncle Toney. The devotion to her on his part almost 
amounts to adoration." 

" My aunt, the mother of Alice, taught her this attachment. There 
is a little history connected with it, and indeed, sir, all the family 
remember his services to our grandfather in a most perilous moment ; 
but you must ask its narration from the old man. He loves to tell it. 
My cousin's memory of her mother is the cherished of her heart. 
Indeed, sir, that is a strong, deep heart. You may never know it ; 
but should you, you will remember that I told you there was but one 
Alice. In all her feelings she is intense ; her love is a flame — her hate 
a thorn ; the fragrance of the one is an incense — the piercing of the 
other is deep and agonizing. Shan't we go in, sir ; I see the damp 
of the dew is on your boot-toe, and you have been ill. The absence 
of the sun is the hour for pestilence to ride the breeze in our climate, 
and you cannot claim to be fully acclimated." 

The autumn progressed, and the rich harvests were being gathered 
and garnered. This season is the longest and the loveliest of the year 
in this beautiful country. During the months of September, Octo- 
ber, and November, there ordinarily falls very little rain, and the tem- 
j)erature is but slightly different. The evolutions of nature are slow 
and beneficent, and it seems to be a period especially disposed so 
that the husbandman should reap in security the fruits of the year's 
labor. The days lag lazily; the atmosphere is serene, and the ceru- 
lean, without a cloud, is deeply blue. The foliage of the forest-trees, 
so gorgeous and abundant, gradually loses the intense green of sum^ 
mer, fading and yellowing so slowly as scarely to be perceptible, 



FIFTYYEARS. 3II 

and by such attenuated degrees accustoming the eye to the change, 
that none of the surprise or unpleasantness of sudden change is seen 
or experienced. 

The fields grow golden ; the redly-tinged leaves of the cotton-plant 
contrast with the chaste pure white of the lint in the bursting pods, 
now so abundantly yielding their wealth ; the red ripe berries all 
over the woods, and the busy squirrels gathering and hoarding these 
and the richer forest-nuts ; the cawing of the crows as they forage 
upon the ungathered corn, feeding and watching with the conscious- 
ness of thieves, and the fat cattle ruminating in the shade, make up 
a scene of beauty and loveliness not met with in a less fervid clime. 
The entranced rapture which filled my soul when first I looked upon 
this scene comes over me now with a freshness that brings back the 
delights of that day with all its cherished memories, though fifty 
years have gone and their sorrows have crushed out all but hope from 
the heart — and all the pleasures of the present are these memories 
kindly clustering about the soul. Perhaps their delights, and those 
who shared them, will revive in eternity. Perhaps not ; perhaps all 
alike — the pleasant and the painful — are to be lost in an eternal, 
oblivious sleep. It is all speculation ; yet hope and doubt go on to 
the grave, and thence none return to cheer the one or elucidate the 
other. But be it eternal life or eternal death, it is wise ; for it is of God. 

The autumn grew old and was threatening a frost — the great 
enemy of fever. The falling leaves and the fitful gusts of chill wind 
presaged the coming of winter. The ear caught the ring of sounds 
more distant and more distinct now that the languor of summer was 
gone, and all animal nature seemed more invigorated and more elas- 
tic. Health and her inhabitants were returning to the city, and the 
guests of the hospitable planters were thinning from the country. 
Business was reviving and commotion was everywhere. 

The young stranger was preparing to leave ; yet he lingered. Ann 
had gone ; Alice grew more shy and timid, and his walks and rides 
were solitary, and but that he loved nature in her autumn robes 
would have been dull and uninteresting. The judge was absent at 
another plantation beyond the river, and his books and his gun were 
his only companions. Sometimes he read, sometimes he rode, and 
sometimes he walked to visit Toney. It was on one of those pecu- 
liarly lonely afternoons which come in the last days of October when 
the stillness persuades to rest and meditation in the woods that, seated 



312 THE MEMORIES OF 

on a prostrate tree near the pathway which led down the little creek 
to the residence of Uncle Toney, the young guest of the judge was 
surprised by Alice with a small negro girl on their way to visit Uncle 
Toney. Both started ; but in a moment were reassured, and slowly 
walked to the cabin of the good old negro. 

" I have come, Uncle Toney," said the youth, "to see you for 
the last time. I am going away to-morrow and, as soon as I can, 
going back to the distant home I so foolishly left." 

"I am sorry you tell me so ; won't you be sorry. Miss Alice ? " 
asked Toney. Alice bit her lip, and the flush upon her cheek was 
less ruddy than usual. 

"You no find dis country good like yourn, young massa? " 

"Yes, Toney, this is a good country, and there is no country more 
beautiful. But, uncle, it requires more than a beautiful country to 
make us happy; we must have with us those we love, and who love 
us ; and the scenes of our childhood — our fathers and mothers, 
and brothers and sisters who are glad with us and who sorrow with 
us, and the companions of our school-days, to make us happy. I am 
here without any of these — not a relation within a thousand miles ; 
with no one to care for me or to love me." There was something 
plaintively melancholly in his words and tones. He looked at Alice, 
her eyes were swimming in tears and she turned away from his gaze. 

"You been mity sick, here, young massa, didn't Miss Alice be 
good to you? Aunt Ann tell me so. If Miss Alice had not nuss 
you, you die." Alice stepped into the cabin taking with her the 
basket the little negro had borne, and placing its contents away, 
came out and handing it to Rose, bid her run home. " I am com- 
ing," she said as she adjusted her bonnet -strings, "the bugaboos 
won't catch you." 

" Yes, Uncle Toney, I am very grateful to Miss Alice. I shall 
never forget her." 

How often that word is thoughtlessly spoken ? Never to forget, is a 
long time to remember. Our lives are a constant change : the present 
drives out the past, and one memory usurps the place of another. 
Yet there are some memories which are always green. These fasten 
themselves upon us in agony. The pleasant are evanescent and pass 
away as a smile, but the bitter live in sighs, recurring eternally. 

Both were silent, both were thoughtful. "Good -by, Uncle 
Toney," said Alice. 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 3 I 3 

" May I join you in your walk home, miss? " There was some- 
thing in the tone of this request, which caused Alice to look up into 
his face and pause a moment before replying, when she said, very 
timidly, " If you please, sir." 

The sun was drooping to the horizon and the shadows made giants 
as thy grew along the sward. ** Farewell, Uncle Toney," said the 
gentleman, shaking hand^ with the old negro. Alice had walked on. 

"O! you need 'nt say farewell so sorry, you'll come back. I 
sees him. You '11 come back. Eberybody who comes to dis country 
if he does go way he 's sure to come back, ticlar when he once find 
putty gall like Miss Alice, ya ! ya! " laughed the old man. "You '11 
come back. I knows it." 

In a few moments he was by the side of Alice. They lounged 
lazily along through the beautiful forest a few paces behind Rose, 
who was too much afraid of bugaboos to allow herself to get far 
away from her mistress. There was a chill in the atmosphere and 
now and then a fitful gust of icy wind from the northwest. Winter was 
coming: these avant-couriers whispered of it; and overhead, swooped 
high up in the blue, a host of whooping cranes, marching in chase of 
the sun now cheering the Antarctic just waking from his winter's sleep. 

" I believe, sir," said Alice, " that the ancients watched the flight 
of birds and predicated their predictions or prophecies upon them." 

** Yes, the untutored of every age and country observe more 
closely the operations of nature than the educated. It is their only 
means of learning. They see certain movements in the beasts and 
the birds before certain atmospheric changes, and their superstitions 
influence a belief, that sentient and invisible beings cause this by 
communicating the changes going on. The more sagacious and 
observant, and I may add the less scrupulous, lay hold upon this 
knowledge, to practice for their own pleasure or profit upon the 
credulity of the masses. There are very many superstitions, miss, 
which are endowed with a character so holy, that he who would 
expose them is hunted down as a wretch, unworthy of life. The 
older and the more ridiculous these, the more holy, and the more 
sacredly cherished." 

"Are you not afraid thus to speak — is there nothing too holy to 
be profanely assaulted? " 

" Nothing which contravenes man's reason. Truth courts investi- 
gation — the more disrobed, the more beautifiil. Science reveals, that 
27 



314 THE MEMORIES OF 

there is no mystery in truth. Its simplicity is often disfigured with 
unnatural and ridiculous superstitions, and these sometimes are so 
prominent as to conceal it. They certainly, with many, bring it into 
disrepute. The more intellectual pluck these off and cast them away. 
They see and know the truth. Yonder birds obey an instinct : the 
chill to their more sensitive natures warns them that the winter, or the 
tempest, or the rain-storm is upon them ; they obey this instinct and 
fly from it. Yet it in due time follows these — the more observant 
know it, and predict it. Those, with the ancients, were sooth-sayers 
or prophets ; with us, they are the same with the ignorant negroes ; 
with the whites, not quite so ignorant, they are — but, miss, I will 
not say. I must exercise a little prudence to avoid the wrath of the 
ignorant — they are multitudinous and very powerful." 

" Kind sir, tell me, have you no superstitions ? Has nothing ever 
occurred to you, your reason could not account for ? Have no pre- 
dictions, to be revealed in the coming future, come to you as 
foretold? " 

"Do not press me on that point, if you please, I might astonish 
and offend you." 

" I am not in the least afraid of your offending me, sir. I could 
not look in your face and feel its inspirations, and believe you capa- 
ble of offending me." 

" Thank you for the generous confidence, thank you. I am going 
and shall remember this so long as I live, and when in my native 
land, will think of it as too sacred for the keeping of any but myself" 

"Are you really going to leave us, and so soon? I — I — would 
— but — " 

"Miss Alice, I have trespassed too long already upon your bro- 
ther's hospitality ; beside, Miss Alice, I begin to feel that his wel- 
come is worn out. Your brother, for some days, has seemed less 
cordial than was his wont during the first weeks of my stay here." 

"My brother, sir, is a strange being — a creature of whims and 
caprices. There is nothing fixed or settled in his opinions or conduct. 
His inviting you to spend the summer with us was a whim : one that 
has astonished several who have not hesitated to express it. It is as 
likely on his return from his river place, that he will devour you with 
kindness as that he will meet you with the coldness he has mani- 
fested for some days. Do not let your conduct be influenced by his 
whims." 



FIFTY YEARS. 315 

** Miss Alice, I am suspicious, perhaps, by nature. I have thought 
that you have avoided me lately. I have been very lonesome at 
times." 

Alice lifted her bonnet from her head, and was swinging it by the 
strings as she walked along for a few steps, when she stopped, and, 
turning to her companion, said with a firm though timid voice : " I 
cannot be deceitful. You have properly guessed : I have avoided 
you. It was on your account as well as my own. My self-respect 
is in conflict with my respect for you. * I need not tell you why I 
avoided you; but I will — conscious that I am speaking to a gentle- 
man who will appreciate my motives and preserve inviolate my com- 
munications. You saw my cousin hurry away from here. She came 
to remain some weeks. The cause of her going was my brother. 
From some strange, unaccountable cause he became offended with 
her, and charged her with giving bad advice to me. What she has 
said to me as advice since she came was in the privacy of my bed- 
room, and in such tones that had he or another been in the chamber 
they could not have overheard it. I know, sir, and in shame do I 
speak it, thaf I am under the surveillance of the servants, who report 
to my brother and my sister my every act and every word ; and I 
know, too, my brother's imagination supplies in many instances 
these reports. Why I am thus watched I know not. 

*' My brother is my guardian, and nature and duty, it would seem, 
should prompt him to guard my happiness as well as my interest ; 
but I know in the one instance he fails, and I fear in the other I am 
suffering. All my family fear him, and none of them love me. I 
am my parents' youngest child. Oh, sir ! England is not the only 
country where it is a curse to be a younger child. My father died 
when I was an infant. My mother was affectionate and indulgent ; 
my sisters were harsh and tyrannical, and in very early girlhood 
taught me to hate them. My mother was made miserable by their 
treatment of me ; and my brother, too, quarrelled with her because 
she would not subject me to the servility of the discipline he pre- 
scribed. This quarrel ripened into hate, and he never came to the 
house or spoke to my mother for years. 

"The day before she died, and when her recovery was thought to 
be impossible, he came with a prepared will and witnesses, which in 
their presence he almost forced her to sign: in this will I was 
greatly wronged, and this brother has tauntingly told me the cause 



3l6 THE MEMORIES OF 

of this was my being the means of prejudicing our mother against 
him. 

" He married a coarse, vulgar Kentucky woman, and brought 
her into the house. She was insolent and disrespectful toward my 
mother, and I resented it. She left the house, and died a few months 
after. Since that day, though I was almost a child, my life has been 
one of constant persecution on the part of my brother and sisters. 
I am compelled to endure it, but do so under protest; if not in words, 
I do in manner, and this I am persuaded you have on more than 
one occasion observed. Please do not consider me impertinent, nor 
let it influence you in your opinion of me, when I tell you my 
brother has rudely said to me that I was too forward in my inter- 
course with you. It is humiliating to say this to you; but I must, for 
it explains my conduct, which save in this regard has been motiveless. 

"A lady born to the inheritance of fortune is very unpleasantly 
situated, both toward her family and to the world. These seem 
solicitous to take greater interest in her pecuniary affairs than in her 
personal happiness, and are always careful to warn her that her money 
is more sought than herself — distracting her mind and 'feelings, and 
keeping her constantly miserable. Since my school-days I have been 
companionless. If I have gone into society, I have been under the 
guard of one or the other of my sisters. These are cold, austere, 
and repulsive, and especially toward those who would most likely seek 
my society, and with whom I would most naturally be pleased. I must 
be retired, cold, and never to seem pleased, but always remarkably 
silent and dignified. I must be a goddess to be worshipped, and not 
an equal to be approached and my society courted companionably. 
In fine, I was to be miserable, and make all who came to me partici- 
pate in this misery. It was more agreeable to remain at home among 
my flowers and shrubs, my books, and my visits to Uncle Toney. 
Do you wonder, sir, that I seem eccentric ? You know how the 
young love companionship — how they crave the amusements which 
lend zest to life. I enjoy none of this, and I am sometimes, I 
believe, nearly crazy. I fear you think me so, now. I want to love 
my brother, but he will not permit me to do so. I fear he has a 
nature so unlovable that such a feeling toward him animates no heart. 
My sisters and a drunken sot of a. brother-in-law pretend to love him 
— but they measure their affection by the hope of gain. They reside 
in Louisiana, and I am glad they are not here during your stay — for 



FIFTY YEARS. 



Z^7 



you would certainly be insulted, especially if they saw the slightest 
evidence of esteem for you on brother's part, or kindness on mine." 

• ' Oh ! sir, how true is the Scripture, ' Out of the fulness of the heart 
the mouth speaketh.' Out of my heart's fulness have I spoken, and, 
I fear you will think, out of my heart's folly, too ; and in my heart's 
sincerity 1 tell you I do not know why I have done so to you — 
for I have never said anything of these things to any one but cousin 
Ann, before. Perhaps it is because 1 know you are going away and 
you will not come to rebuke me with your presence any more ; for 
indeed, sir, I do not know how I could meet you and not blush at 
the memory of this evening's walk." 

*' Miss Alice, I have a memory, or it may be a fancy, that in the 
delirium of my fever, some weeks since, I saw you like a spirit of 
light flitting about my bed and ministering to my wants ; and I am 
sure, when all supposed me in extremis, you came, and on my brow 
placed your soft hand, and pressed it gently above my burning brain. 
My every nerve thrilled beneath that touch ; my dead extremities 
trembled and were alive again. The brain resumed her functions, and 
the nervous fluid flashed through my entire system, and departing life 
came back again. You saved my life. Were the records of time and 
events opened to my inspection and I could read it there, I could not 
more believe this than I now do. Then what is due from me to you? 
This new evidence of confidence adds nothing to the obligation — it 
was full without it. But it is an inspiration I had not before. We are 
here. Miss Alice, within a few steps of the threshold of the house in 
which you were born. I am far from the land of my nativity — our 
meeting was strange, and this second meeting not the less so." 

" Ah! you have almost confessed that you are superstitious. You 
need not have acknowledged that you are romantic ; your young life 
has proven this." 

" Stay, Miss Alice : you asked me but now if there had never been 
the realization of previous predictions. You said you knew I would 
not ofi"end you. I would not, but may. Now listen to me, here under 
the shade of this old oak. When I was a child, my nurse was an 
aged African woman ; like all her race, she was full of superstition, 
and she would converse with me of mysteries, and spells, and won- 
derful revelations, until my mind was filled as her own with strange 
superstitions and presentiments. On one occasion, on the Sabbath 
day, I found her in the orchard, seated beneath a great pear-tree, and 
27* 



3l8 THE MEMORIES OF 

went to her — for though I was no longer her ward to nurse, I liked 
to be with her and hear her talk. It was a beautiful day, the fruit- 
trees were in bloom, and the spring - feeling in the sunshine was 
kindling life into activity through all nature. She asked me to let 
her see my hand and she would tell me my fortune. She pretended 
sagely to view every line, and here and there to press her index 
finger sharply down. At length she began to speak. 

" 'You will not stay with your people,' she said, 'but will be a 
great traveller ; and when in some far-away country, you will be sick 
— mighty sick ; and a beautiful woman will find you, and she will nurse 
you, and you will love that beautiful woman, and she will love you, 
and she will marry you, and you will not come to reside with your 
people any more.' Now, Miss Alice, I have wandered far away from 
my home, have been sick, very sick, and a beautiful woman has 
nursed me until I am well, and oh ! from my heart I do love that 
beautiful woman. So far all of this wild prediction has been veri- 
fied ; and it remains with you, my dear Alice, to say if the latter por- 
tion shall be. You are too candid to delay reply, and too sincere to 
speak equivocally." 

She trembled as she looked up into his face and read it for a 
moment. " You are too much of a gentleman to speak as you have, 
unless it came from your heart. O my God ! is this reality, or am I 
dreaming?" She drooped her head upon his shoulder, and said: 
" ' Whither thou goest I will go ; thy house shall be my house, and 
thy God my God.' " 

The full moon was just above the horizon, and the long dark 
shadows veiled them from view. The judge rode in at the gate, and 
leaving his horse, went directly into the house. A moment after a 
carriage drove into the court, and from it dismounted the brother-in- 
law sot and her weird sister; for indeed she was a very Hecate in looks 
and mischief. Alice stole away to Her chamber; and the happy 
stranger to wander among the shrubs, regardless of the damp and 
chill. 

Here were two young hearts conscious of happiness ; but was it a 
happiness derived from the respective merits and congenial natures 
of the two known to each other? They were comparatively strangers, 
knowing little of the antecedents of each other. Each was unhappily 
situated — the one from poverty, the other owing to her wealth; the 
one ardently desirous of bettering pecuniarily his position, the other 



, FIFTY YEARS. 3ig 

to release herself from restraints that were tyrannical and to enjoy 
that independence which she felt was her natural right. Might not 
these considerations override the purer impulses of the heart arising 
from that regard for qualities which win upon the mind until ripened 
first into deep respect, then mellowed into tender affection by asso- 
ciation protracted and intimate ? They had been reared in societies 
radically different : their early impressions were equally antago- 
nistic ; but their aims were identical — to escape from present per- 
sonal embarrassments. 

They had met romantically. He had been removed for many 
months from the presence of civilized society, though naturally fond 
of female association, and craving deeply in his heart the commu- 
nion again of that intercourse, which had (as he had learned from sad 
experience) been the chief cause of the happiness of his youth. He 
met her first as he entered anew the relations of civilized and social 
society. She was young and exquisitely beautiful. Their meeting 
was but for a moment ; their intercourse was intensely delightful to 
him, and the interest her ardent nature manifested toward him was 
extremely captivating. He had gone from her, with her ip all his 
heart. 

She for the time was free. She felt not the restraint of her female 
relatives, and the ardor of her heart burned out in the delighted sur- 
prise she experienced in the gentle and genial bearing of one to all 
seeming rude and uncultivated as the savage he so much resembled 
in the contour of his apparel. She had trembled with a strange 
ecstasy as he strolled by her side, and felt a thrill pierce her soul as. 
she looked into his face and saw what she had never seen, beaming 
in his eyes. She had never seen it before ; yet she knew it, and felt 
she had found what her heart had so long and so ardently craved. 
She had parted from him with a consciousness that she was never to 
meet him again ; and yet his image was with her by day and by night 
— her fancy kept him by day, and her dreams by night. She loved 
him for the mellow civilization of his heart and for the wild savage- 
ne.ss of his garb. Oh, the heart of dear woman ! it is her world. 
Would that the realizations of life were as her heart paints and craves 
them ! He had again come aS unexpectedly to her; but the figure 
was without its surroundings : the diamond was there, but the setting 
was gone, and she was not agreeably surprised : hence the indiffer- 
ence manifested by her when he discovered to her his identity. 



320 THE MEMORIES OF 

Intercourse had revived the tenderness of the woman as it dispelled 
the romance of the girl. Her affection she deemed was not a fancy, 
but a feeling now. Her heart had wandered and fluttered like a 
wounded bird seeking some friendly limb for support — some secluded 
shade for rest. She had found all, and she was happy. He was her 
future ; she thought of none other — of nothing else. Was he as 
happy? He had seen the rough side of the world, and thought more 
rationally. His night was sleepless. In a moment of feeling he had 
asked and received the heart of a lovely being whom he felt he could 
always love. He knew she was more than anxious for a home where 
she was mistress, and he must prepare it — but how, or where? He 
was without means. It was humiliating to depend on hers ; and this 
was the first alloy which stained and impoverished the bliss of his 
anticipations. 

They met in the early morning. Her brow was clouded. None 
were up save themselves. Their interview was brief and explicit. 
He saw her in a new phase ; she had business tact as well as an inde- 
pendent spirit. 

"You must leave this morning," she said, "and immediately after 
breakfast. My sister has put the servants through the gantlet of 
inquiry. They knew what she wanted to know, and if inclination 
had been wanting, the fear of the stocks and torture would have 
compelled them to tell it to her. She has heard all she wished, to 
her heart's content. She was in my chamber until midnight, and, as 
usual, we have quarrelled. They have told her that I was constantly 
,with you, and that I was in love with you, and a thousand things less 
true than this. She has upbraided me for entering your chamber 
when you were sick. She menacingly shook her finger at me, and 
almost threatened corporal punishment if I did not desist from your 
association. I shall be surprised if she does not insult you upon 
sight. Nothing will prevent it but fear of offending brother. This 
she would not do for less than half of his estate — for that, and even 
more, she is now playing. She pretends devotion to him ; and they 
profess a mutual attachment. If this is sincere, it is the only love 
either of them ever felt. You must express to brother, the moment 
you see him, your determination to leave at once, and let it be decided. 
I don't know your means, but fear you will be embarrassed, as you 
are comparatively a stranger, in preparing a home for us. Give this 
to its address, and you will have all you want. Do not stop to look 



FIFTY YEARS. 321 

at it. Put it in your pocket — there. I shall not be at the table 
this morning ; there would be unpleasantness for you, I am sure. I 
shall not see you again until you come to carry me to our own home, 
which shall be very soon. Despite this contretemps I am very 
happy ; and now farewell. I will write to you ; for to-day I mean 
to tell brother I am to be your wife. I know how he will receive it ; 
but he knows me, and will more than simply approve it. He will 
wish to give us a wedding ; but I will not receive it. Our marriage 
must be private. Again farewell ! " Without a kiss they parted. 

What were the reflections of this young man in his long morning's 
drive he will never forget. 'T was fifty years ago ; but they are green 
in memory yet, and will be until the grave yonder at the hill's foot, 
now opening to view, shall close over — close out this mortality, and 
all the memories which have imbittered life so long. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

WHEN SUCCESSFUL, right; WHEN NOT, WRONG. 

Territorial Mississippi — Wilkinson — Adams — Jefferson — Warren — 
Claiborne — Union of the Factions — Colonel Wood — Chew — David 
Hunt — Joseph Dunbar — Society of Western Mississippi — Pop Visits 
OF A Week to Tea — The Horse "Tom" and his Rider — Our Grand- 
father's Days — An Emigrant's Outfit — My Share — George Poindex- 
ter — A Sudden Opening of a Court of Justice — The Caldwell and 
Gwinn Duel — Jackson's Opposition to the Governor of Mississippi. 

THE Counties of Wilkinson, Adams, Jefferson, Claiborne, and 
Warren are the river counties carved from the territory first 
settled in the State of Mississippi. The settlements along the Mis- 
sissippi came up from New Orleans and went gradually up the stream. 
The English or American immigration to that river antedated but a 
very short time the war of the Revolution, The commencement of 
this war accelerated the settlement, many seeking an asylum from 
the horrors of war within the peaceful borders of this new and far- 
away land. The five counties above named constituted the County 
of Bourbon when the jurisdiction of the United States was extended 
V 



322 THE MEMORIES OF 

to the territory. Very soon after it was divided into three counties 
— Wilkinson, Adams, and Jefferson; and subsequently, as the popu- 
lation increased, Claiborne and Warren were organized and estab- 
lished. These counties were named after John Adams, Thomas Jef- 
ferson, General Wilkinson, General Warren, who fell at Bunker's 
Hill, and General Ferdinand Claiborne, a distinguished citizen of the 
Territory. As a Territory, Mississippi extended to and comprised 
all the territory east to the Alabama River or to the Georgia line. 
In fact, there was no distinct eastern boundary until the admission 
of the State into the Union. 

The leading men of the communities first formed in the five 
counties on the Mississippi were men of intelligence and substance. 
The very first were those who, to avoid the consequences of the war 
of the Revolution, had sought security here. Some, who conscien- 
tiously scrupled as to their duty in that conflict — unwilling to violate 
an allegiance which they felt they owed to the British crown, and 
equally unwilling to take part against their kindred and neighbors — 
had left their homes and come here. There were not a few of des- 
perate character, who had come to avoid the penalties of the criminal 
laws of the countries from which they had fled. The descendants of 
all these constitute a large element of the population of these counties 
at the present moment. Some of these sustain the character of their 
ancestors in an eminent degree ; others again are everything but what 
their parents were. 

One feature of the country is different from that of almost any 
other portion of the United States. The descendants of the first 
pioneers are all there. There has been no emigration from the 
country. The consequence is that intermarriages have made nearly 
all the descendants of tlije pioneers relatives. In very many instances 
these marriages have united families whose ancient feuds are tradi- 
tions of the country. 

The opprobrium attached to the name of Tory (which was freely 
given to all who had either avoided the war by emigration, or who 
had remained and taken part against the colonies, and" then, to avoid 
the disgrace they had earned at home, and also to escape the penalties 
of the laws of confiscation, had brought here their property) induced 
most families to observe silence respecting their early history, or 
the causes which brought them to the country, and especially to 
their children. This was true even as late as forty years ago. There 



FIFTY YEARS, 323 

Tifre then in these counties many families of wealth and polish, whose 
ancestors were obnoxious on account of this damaging imputation ; 
and it was remembered as a tradition carefully handed down by those 
who at a later day came to the country from the neighborhoods left 
by these families, and in most instances for crimes of a much more 
heinous character than obedience to conscientious allegiance to the 
Government. But success had made allegiance treachery, and rebel- 
lion allegiance. Success too often sanctifies acts which failure would 
have made infamous. 

" Be it so ! though right trampled be counted for Ji;rong, 
And that pass for right which is evil victorious, 
Here, where virtue is feeble and villany strong, 

'Tis the cause, not the fate of a cause, that is glorious." 

The inviting character of the soil and climate induced (as soon as 
a settled form of government promised protection) rapid emigration 
to the country. This came from every part of the United States. 
Those coming from the same State usually located as nearly as prac- 
ticable in the same neighborhood, and to this day many of these 
are designated by the name of the country or State from which they 
came. There are in the County of Jefferson two neighborhoods 
known to-day as the Maryland settlement and the Scotch settlement, 
and the writer has many memories — very pleasant ones, too — of 
happy hours in the long past spent with some of nature's noblemen 
who were inhabitants of these communities. 

Who that has ever sojourned for a time in this dear old county, 
does not remember the generous and elegant hospitality of Colonel 
Wood, Joseph Dunbar, and Mr. Chew ; nor must I forget that truly 
noble-hearted man, David Hunt, the founder of Oakland College, 
whose charitable munificence was lordly in character, but only com- 
mensurate with his soul and great wealth. It seems invidious to 
individualize the hospitality of this community, where all were so dis- 
tinguished ; but I cannot forbear my tribute of respect — my heart's 
gratitude — to Wood and Dunbar. I came among these people 
young and a stranger, poor, and struggling to get up in the world. 
These two opened their hearts, their doors, and their purses to me ; 
but it was not alone to me. Should all who have in like circum- 
stances been the recipients of their generous and unselfish kind- 
nesses record them as I am doing, the story of their munificent 



324 THE MEMORIES OF 

generosity and open, exalted hospitality would seem an Eastern 
romance. 

They have been long gathered to their fathers ; but so long as any 
live who knew them, their memories will be green and cherished. 
In this neighborhood was built the first Protestant Episcopal Church 
in the State, and here worshipped the Woods, Dunbars, MacGruders, 
Shields, Greens, and others composing the settlement. The de- 
scendants of these families still remain in that neighborhood, where 
anterior to the late war was accumulated great wealth. The topog- 
raphy of the country is beautifully picturesque with hills and dales, 
and all exceedingly fertile. These hills are a continuation of the 
formation commencing at Vicksburg, and extending to Bayou Sara. 
They are peculiar, and seem to have been thrown over the primi- 
tive formation by some extraordinary convulsion, and are of a sandy 
loam. No marine shells are found in them; but occasionally trees 
and leaves are exhumed at great depths. No water is found in this 
loam by digging or boring ; but after passing through this secondary- 
formation, the humus or soil of the primitive is reached — the leaves 
and limbs of trees superincumbent on this indicating its character — 
then the sand and gravel, and very soon water, as in other primitive 
formations. These hills extend back from the river in an irregular 
line from ten to fifteen miles, and are distinguished by a peculiar 
growth of timber and smaller shrubs. 

The magnolias and poplars, with linn, red oak, and black walnut, 
are the principal trees. There is no pine, but occasionally an enor- 
mous sassafras, such as are found in no other section on this continent. 
There is no stone, and no running water except streams having their 
rise in the interior, passing through these hills to their debouchment 
into the river. The entire formation is a rich compost, and in great 
part soluble in water; this causes them to wash, and when not culti- 
vated with care, they cut into immense gullies and ravines. They 
are in some places almost mountainous in height and exceedingly 
'precipitous. They are designated at different localities by peculiar 
names — as the Walnut Hills, Grand Hills, Petit Gulf Hills, Natchez 
Hills, and St. Catherine Hills. In primitive forest they presented a 
most imposing appearance. 

Large and lofty timber covered from base to summit these hills, 
increasing their grandeur by lifting to their height the immense vines 
found in great abundance all over them. The dense wild cane, 



FIFTY YEARS. 325 

clothing as a garment the surface of every acre, went to the very 
tops of the highest hills, adding a strange feature to hill scenery. 
The river only approaches these hills in a few places and always at 
right angles, and is by them deflected, leaving them always on the 
outer curve of the semicircle or bend in the stream. From these 
points and from the summit of these cliffs the view is very fine, 
stretching often in many places far up and down the river and away 
over the plain west of the river, which seems to repose upon its lap 
as far as the eye can view. The scene is sombre, but grand, espe- 
cially when lighted by the evening's declining sun. The plain is 
unbroken by any elevation : the immense trees rise to a great height, 
and all apparently to the same level — the green foliage in summer 
strangely commingling with the long gray moss which festoons from 
the upper to the lower limbs, waving as a garland in the fitful wind ; 
and the dead gray of the entire scene in winter is sad and melancholy 
as a vast cemetery. There is a gloomy grandeur in this, which is 
only rivalled by that of the sea, when viewed from a towering height, 
lazily lolling in the quiet of a summer evening's calm. 

To encounter the perils of a pioneer to such a country required 
men of iron nerve. Such, with women who dared to follow them, 
to meet and to share every danger and fearlessly to overcome every 
obstacle to their enterprise, coming from every section of the 
United States, formed communities and introduced the arts and 
industry of civilization, to subdue these forests and compel the 
soil to yield its riches for the use of man. From these had grown a 
population, fifty years ago, combining the daring and noble traits of 
human character which lie at the base of a grand and chivalrous 
civilization. Such men were the leaders and controllers of the 
society at that time, assuming a uniform and homogeneous character 
throughout the western portion of the State. The invasion of New 
Orleans had endangered this section, and to a man they rallied to 
meet the foe. More than half the male population of that portion 
of the State were at New Orleans and in the trenches on the memo- 
rable 8th of January, 181 5. Their conduct upon that occasion was 
distinguished, and won from General Jackson high commendation. 
The charge of the Mississippi cavalry, commanded by General 
Thomas Hinds, the General, in his report of the battle, said, excited 
the admiration of one army and the astonishment of the other. 

This campaign brought together the younger portion of the male 



326 THE MEMORIES OF 

population of tlie State, and under such circumstances as to make 
them thoroughly to know each other. These men were the promi- 
nent personages of the State forty years ago, and they formed the 
character of the population and inspired the. gallantry and chivalry 
of spirit which so distinguished the troops of Mississippi in the late 
unfortunate civil war — in all, but in none so conspicuously, in this 
spirit and nobleness of soul and sentiment, as in the characters of 
Jefferson Davis and John A. Quitman — foremost to take up arms in 
the war with Mexico, resigning high positions for the duties of the 
soldier, to follow the flag, and avenge the insults of a presumptuous 
foe. 

The society of Western Mississippi, forty years ago, was distin- 
guished above any other in the Union, for a bold, generous, and 
frank character, which lent a peculiar charm. It was polished, yet 
it was free and unreserved, full of the courtesies of life, with the rough 
familiarity of a coarser people. The sports of the turf were pursued 
with enthusiastic ardor. The chase for the fox and the red deer 
pervaded almost universally the higher walks of life. The topogra- 
phy of the country was such as to make these, in the fearless rides 
they compelled, extremely hazardous, familiarizing their votaries 
with danger and inspiring fearlessness and daring. Almost every 
gentleman had his hunting steed and kennel of hounds ; and at the 
convivial dinner which always followed the hunt, he could talk horse 
and hound with the zest of a groom or whipper-in, and at the even- 
ing soirie emulate D'Orsay or Chesterfield in the polish of his man- 
ners and the elegance of his conversation. This peculiarity was not 
alone confined to the gentlemen. The ladies were familiar with 
every household duty, and attended to them : they caught from their 
husbands and brothers the open frankness of their bearing and con- 
versation, a confident, yet not a bold or offensive bearing in their 
homes and in society, with a polished refinement and an elevation of 
sentiment in all they said or did, which made them to me the most 
charming and lovely of their sex — and which made Mississippi forty 
years ago the most desirable place of rural residence in the Union. 

The conduct of these people was universally lofty and honorable. 
A fawning sycophancy or little meannesses were unknown ; social 
intercourse was unrestrained because all were honorable, and that 
reserve which so plainly speaks suspicion of your company was never 
seen. There was no habit of canvassing the demerits of a neighbor 



FIFTY YEARS. 327 

or his affairs. The little backbitings and petty slanders which so 
frequently mar the harmony of communities, was never indulged or 
tolerated. Homogeneous in its character, the population was harmo- 
nious. United in the same pursuits, the emulation was kind and 
honorable. The tone and purity was superior to low and debasing 
vices, and these and their concomitants were unknown. There were 
few dram-shops or places of low resort, and these only for the lower 
and more debased of the community. Fortunately, fifty years ago, 
there were but few such characters, no meetings for gaming or 
debauchery, and the social communion of the people was chaste and 
cordial at their hospitable and elegant homes. 

A peculiar feature of the society of the river counties was the 
perfect freedom of manners, and yet the high polish, the absence 
of neighborhood discord, and the strict regard for personal and 
pecuniary rights : a sort of universal confidence pervaded every com- 
munity, and in every transaction personal honor supplied the place 
of litigation. Strangers of respectable appearance were not met with 
apparent suspicion, but with hospitable kindness; and especially was 
this the case toward young men who professedly came in search of a 
new home and new fields for the exercise of their abilities profes- 
sionally, or for the more profitable employment of any means they 
might to have brought to the country. Now, at seventy years of age, 
and after the experience of half a century of men and society in 
almost every portion of the Union, I can truthfully say, nowhere 
have I ever met so truthful, so generous, and so hospitable a people 
as the planters and gentlemen of the river counties of Mississippi, 
fifty years ago — nowhere women more refined, yet affable ; so 
modest, yet frank and open in their social intercourse; so dignified, 
without austerity ; so chaste and pure in sentiment and action, with- 
out prudery or affectation, as the mothers, wives, and daughters of 
those planters. 

The Bench and the Bar were distinguished for ability and purity; 
many of these have left national reputations — all of them honora- 
ble names to their families and profession. Nor were the physicians 
less distinguished. The names of Provan, McPheters, Cartwright, 
Ogden, Parker, Cox, and Dennie will be remembered when all who 
were their compeers shall have passed away, as ornaments to their 
profession. There is one other, still living at a very advanced age, 
who was perhaps the superior of any I have mentioned — James Met- 



328 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

calf, who not only was and is an ornament to his profession, but to 
human nature. He is one of the few surviving monuments of the 
men of fifty years ago. His life lias been eminently useful and emi- 
nently pure. He has lived to see his children emulating his example 
as virtuous arid useful citizens, above reproach, and an honor to their 
parents. 

There was not, perhaps, in the Union, a stronger Bar in any four 
counties than here — Childs, Gibbs, Worley, George Adams, (the 
father of Generals Daniel and Wirt Adams,) Robert H. Adams, (who 
died a Senator in the United States Congress when it was an honor to 
fill the position,) Lyman Harding, W. B. Griffith, John A. Quitman, 
Joseph E. Davis, (the elder brother of Jefferson Davis,) Thomas B. 
Reid, Robert J. and Duncan Walker. Time has swept on, and but 
one of all these remains in life — Robert J. Walker. Edward Tuner, 
then the presiding judge of the District Court, was a Kentuckian. 
Four brothers immigrated to the country about the same time. Two 
remained at Natchez, one at Bayou Sara, in Louisiana, and the fourth 
went to New Orleans. All became distinguished : three as lawyers, 
who honored the Bench in their respective localities, and the fourth 
as a merchant and planter accumulated an immense fortune. 

The planters almost universally resided upon their plantations, 
and their habits were rural and temperate. Their residences were 
imostentatious, but capacious and comfortable, with every attach- 
ment which could secure comfort or contribute to their pleasure. 
The plantation houses for the slaves were arranged conveniently 
together, constituting with the barns, stabling, and gin-houses a neat 
village. 

The grounds about the residences were covered with forest-trees 
carefully preserved ; shrubs and flowers were cultivated with exquisite 
taste among these and over the garden grounds around and beyond 
them. Social intercourse was of the most cordial and unrestrained 
character. It was entirely free from that embarrassing ceremony 
which in urban communities makes it formal, stiff, and a mere cere- 
mony. It was characterized by high-breeding, which made it not 
only unrestrained but polished, cultivating the heart and the manners 
to feeling and refinement; making society what it should be — a 
source of enjoyment and heart-happiness, free from jealousies, rival- 
ries, and regrets. 

The distances from plantation to plantation were such as to pre- 



FIFTY YEARS. 329 

elude visiting as a simple call ; consequently calls were for spending 
a day to dine, or an evening to tea, to a rural ride, or some amuse- 
ment occupying at least half a day, and not unfrequently half a week. 
Every planter built his house, if not with a view to architectural sym- 
metry and beauty, at least with ample room to entertain his friends, 
come they in ever such numbers, and his hospitality was commen- 
surate with his house — as capacious and as unpretenaing. It was 
the universal habit for both ladies and gentlemen to ride on horse- 
back. The beauty of the forest, through which ran the roads and 
by-ways — its fragrant blooms — its dark, dense foliage, invited to such 
exercise; and social reunions were frequently accomplished in the 
cool shades of these grand old forests by parties ruralizing on horse- 
back when the sun was low, and the shade was sweet, which led them 
to unite and visit, as unexpectedly as they were welcome, some neigh- 
bor, where without ceremony the evening was spent in rural and 
innocent amusement — a dance, a game of whist or euchre — until 
weary with these ; and on the arrival of the hour for rest they left, 
and galloped home in the soft moonlight, respectively flushed with 
health-giving exercise, and only sufficiently fatigued to be able to 
sleep well. 

Nowhere does a splendid woman appear to more advantage than 
on horseback. Trained from early girlhood to horseback exercise, 
she learns to sit fearlessly and control absolutely the most fiery steed, 
to accommodate herself to his every motion, and in his movements 
to display the ease and grace of this control and confidence. No- 
where on earth were to be found more splendid women or more 
intrepid riders than the daughters of the planters of Mississippi fifty 
years ago. Each was provided for her especial use with an animal 
of high blood, finished form, and well-trained gait. Daily inter- 
course familiarized rider and horse, and an attachment grew up 
between them that was always manifested by both upon meeting. It 
was said by Napoleon that his parade-horse knew and recognized 
him, and bore himself with more pride and spirit when he was in the 
saddle than when mounted by any other. Whoever has accustomed 
himself to treat kindly his saddle-horse, and to suffer no one but 
himself to ride him, can well understand this. I remember a horse 
and his rider among my early acquaintances on the banks of the 
Mississippi, whose mutual attachment was so remarkable as to excite 
the wonder of strangers. That rider was a true woman — kind, 
28* 



330 THE MEMORIES OF 

gentle, and yet full of spirit. Affectionate as she was fearless, she 
had importuned her brother for the gift of a fine young blood-horse, 
which he gave her upon the condition that she would ride him. She 
was an experienced rider, and promised. 

After a few days of close intimacy, she ventured to mount him. 
To the astonishment of every one he was perfectly docile, and moved 
away gently, but with an air of pride, as if conscious of the precious 
burden he bore. From that time forward no one was permitted to 
ride him but the lady, who visited him every day in his stall, and 
always carried him a loaf of bread or a cup of sugar, and never 
mounted him without going to his front and holding a conversation 
with pretty Tom, stroking his head with her gentle hand, and giving 
him a lump of sugar or a biscuit. He was allowed the liberty of the 
yard, to graze on the young sweet grass of the front lawn, and luxu- 
riate in the shade of the princely trees which grew over it. One or 
many ladies might go out upon the gallery and remain unnoticed by 
Tom. The moment, however, that his mistress came, and he saw 
her or heard her voice, he would neigh in recognition of her pres- 
ence, and bound immediately forward to the^ house, manifesting in 
his eye and manner great pleasure. This was kindly returned by 
the lady always descending the steps and gently stroking his head, 
which he would affectionately rest against her person. He would 
follow her over the yard like a pet spaniel ; but he would do this for 
no one else. He knew her voice, and would obey it, and bound 
to her call with the alacrity of a child. His pleasure at her coming 
to mount him, when saddled for a ride, was so marked as to excite 
astonishment. He would carefully place himself for her convenience, 
and stand quiet after she was in the saddle until her riding-skirt was 
adjusted and her foot well in the stirrup, and then she would only 
say, *' Now, Tom ! " when he would arch his neck and move off 
with a playful bound, and curvet about the grounds until she would 
lay her hand upon his mane, and, gently patting his neck, say, 
''There, Tom ! " Then the play was over, and he went gallantly 
forward, obediently and kindly as a reasoning being. 

The young reader will excuse this garrulity of age : it is its privilege ; 
and I am writing my recollections of bygone years, and none are 
more pleasant than those which recall to me this great woman — the 
delightful hours spent in her society at the hospitable home of her 
'family. She still lives, an aged woman, respected by all, and hon- 



FIFTY YEARS. 33I 

ored in the great merits of her children. Like Tom, they were 
affectionately trained ; and like Tom, they were dutiful in their con- 
duct, and live to perpetuate her intelligence and the noble attributes 
of her glorious heart. Should these lines ever meet her eye, she 
will remember the writer, and recall the delightful rides and happy 
hours spent together a long time ago. We are both in the winter of 
life, time's uses are almost ended, and all that is blissful now are the 
memories of the past. Dear Fannie, close the book and your eyes, 
turn back to fifty years ago, and to the memories common to us both, 
give the heart one brief moment to these, and, as now I do, drop a 
tear to them. 

The population in the four river counties, at the time of which I 
write, was much more dense than of any other portion of the State : 
still there were numerous settlements in different parts of the State 
quite populous. That upon Pearl River, of these, perhaps, was most 
populous ; but those eastern settlements were constituted of a different 
people : most of them were from the poorer districts of Georgia and 
the Carolinas. True to the instincts of the people from whom they 
were descended, they sought as nearly as possible just such a country 
as that from which they came, and were really refugees from a grow- 
ing civilization consequent upon a denser population and its neces-^ 
sities. They were not agriculturists in a proper sense of the term ; 
true, they cultivated in some degree the soil, but it was not the prime 
pursuit of these people, nor was the location sought for this purpose. 
They desired an open, poor, pine country, which forbade a numerous 
population. 

Here they reared immense herds of cattle, which subsisted ex- 
clusively upon the coarse grass and reeds which grew abundantly 
among the tall, long-leafed pine, and along the small creeks and 
branches numerous in this section. Through these almost inter- 
minable pine-forests the deer were abundant, and the canebrakes full 
of bears. They combined the pursuits of hunting and stock-mind- 
ing, and derived support and revenue almost exclusively from these. 
They were illiterate and careless of the comforts of a better reared, 
better educated, and more intelligent people. They were unable to 
eniploy for each family a teacher, and the population was too sparse 
to collect the children in a neighborhood school. These ran wild, 
half naked, unwashed and uncombed, hatless and bonnetless through 
the woods and grass, followed by packs of lean and hungry curs, 



332 THE MEMORIES OF 

hallooing and yelling in pursuit of rabbits and opossums, and were 
as wild as the Indians they had supplanted, and whose pine-bark 
camps were yet here and there to be seen, where temporarily stayed 
a few strolling, degraded families of Choctaws. 

Some of these pioneers had been in the country many years, were 
surrounded with descendants, men and women, the growth of the 
country, rude, illiterate, and independent. Along the margins of the 
streams they found small strips of land of better quality than the pine- 
forests afforded. Here they grew sufficient corn for bread and a few 
of the coarser vegetables, and in blissful ignorance enjoyed life after 
the manner they loved. The country gave character to the people : 
both were wild and poor; both were stii generis in appearance and 
production, and both seeming to fall away from the richer soil and 
better people of the western portion of the State. 

Between them and the inhabitants of the river counties there was 
little communication and less sympathy ; and I fancy no country on 
earth of the same extent presented a wider difference in soil and popula- 
tion, especially one speaking the same language and professing the same 
religion. Time, and the pushing a railroad through this eastern por- 
tion of the State, have effected vast changes for the better, and among 
these quaintly called piney-woods people now are families of wealth 
and cultivation. But in the main they are yet rude and illiterate. 

Not ten years since, I spent some time in Eastern Mississippi. I 
met at his home a gentleman I had made the acquaintance of in New 
Orleans. He is a man of great worth and fine intelligence : his grand- 
father had emigrated to the country in 1785 from Emanuel County, 
Georgia. His grandson says: " He carried with him a small one- 
horse cart pulled by an old gray mare, one feather bed, an oven, a 
frying-pan, two pewter dishes, six pewter plates, as many spoons, a 
rifle gun, and three deer-hounds. He worried through the Creek 
Nation, extending then from the Oconee River to the Tombigbee. 

"After four months of arduous travel he found his way to Leaf 
River, and there built his cabin ; and with my grandmother, and my 
father, who was born on the trip in the heart of the Creek Nation, com- 
menced to make a fortune. He found on a small creek of beautiful 
water a little bay land, and made his little field for corn and pump- 
kins upon that spot : all around was poor, barren pine woods, but he 
said it was a good range for stock ; but he had not an ox or cow on 
the face of the earth. The truth is, it looked like Emanuel County. 



FIFTY YEARS. 333 

The turpentine smell, the moan of the winds through the pine-trees, 
and nobody within fifty miles of him, was too captivating a concate- 
nation to be resisted, and he rested here. 

" About five years after he came, a man from Pearl River was driv- 
ing some cattle by to Mobile, and gave my grandfather two cows to 
help him drive his cattle. It was over one hundred miles, and you 
would have supposed it a dear bargain ; but it turned out well, for the 
old man in about six weeks got back with six other head of cattle. 
How or where, or from whom he got them is not one of the traditions 
of the family. From these he commenced to rear a stock which in 
time became large. 

" My father and his brothers and sisters were getting large enough 
to help a little ; but my grandfather has told me that my father was 
nine years old before he ever tasted a piece of bacon or pork. 
When my father was eighteen years of age he went with a drove of 
beef cattle to New Orleans. He first went to Baton Rouge, thence 
down the river. He soon sold out advantageously ; for he came 
home with a young negro man and his wife, some money, and my 
mother, whom he had met and married on the route. Well, from 
those negroes, and eight head of cattle, all the family have come to 
have something. 

"I was born nine months after that trip, and grew up, as father had 
done before me, on the banks of that little creek. I doubt if there 
ever was a book in my grandfather's house. I certainly never 
remember to have seen one there, and I was sixteen years old when 
he died. I think I was very nearly that old before I ever saw any 
woman but those of the family, and I know I was older than that before 
ever I wore shoes or pants. Nearly every year father went to Mobile, 
or Natchez, or New Orleans. The first time I ever knew my mother 
had a brother, I was driving up the cows, and a tall , good-looking man 
overtook me in the road and asked where my father lived. I remem- 
ber I told him, 'At home.' He thought it was impudence, but it 
was ignorance. However, he was quite communicative and friendly. 

"That night, after the family had gone to bed, I heard him tell 
mother her father was dead, and that he had disinherited her for 
running off and marrying father. I did not know what this meant ; 
but the next day father came and told mother that her brother 
wanted to be kind to her, and had proposed to give him a thousand 
dollars out of the estate of her father, if he and she would take it and 



334 TI^E MEMORIES OF 

sign off. That was the word. I shall not forget, so long as I live, 
my mother's looks as she walked up to father and said : ' Don't you 
do it, John. John, I say, don't you do it.' Uncle had gone down 
to grandfather's, and when he came back, mother had his horse sad- 
dled at the fence. She met him at the door, and said : ' You don't 
come in here. There 's your beast ; mount him, and go. I am not 
such a fool as my John. I was raised in Louisiana, and I remember 
hearing my father say that all he hated in the laws was that a man 
could not do with his property, when he died, what he pleased. 
I haven't forgot that. I have not seen nor heard from any of you 
for fifteen years, and never should, if you had n't come here to try to 
cheat me.' 

" I was scared, and father was scared ; for we knew there was dan- 
ger when mother's nap was up. Uncle did not reply to mother, but 
said : ' John, you can sign off.' 

" * No, John can't; and I tell you John shan't! so now do you 
just mount that horse and leave.* 

"As she said this she lifted the old rifle out of the rack over the 
door and rubbed her hand over the barrel to get the sight clear. ' I 
am not going to tell you to go any more.' 

" It was not necessary — uncle went; but he kept looking back until 
he was at least a quarter of a mile from the house. Mother turned to 
father and said : * Now, John, you go after my share of father's truck, 
and go quick.' He did as she bid him : everybody about the house 
did that. Well, he was gone three weeks, and came home with six 
thousand dollars, which he had taken for mother's share ; but she 
said she knew he had been cheated. 

" Every dollar of that money remained in the house until I got 
married and came off here. I got two thousand of it, one negro, 
and two hundred head of cattle. I had promised my wife's people 
that I would come and live with them. I am glad I did. I was 
twenty-one years old when I learned my letters. I have been lucky ; 
have educated my children, and they have educated me, and are talk- 
ing about running me for Congress. Well, my friend, I believe I 
could be elected ; but that is a small part of the business. I should 
be of no service to the State, and only show my own ignorance. 
Come, Sue, can't you give the gentleman some music ? Give me my 
fiddle, and I will help you." 

Sue was a beautiful and interesting girl of nineteen, only a short 



FIFTY YEARS. 



335 



time returned from a four-years residence at the famous Patapsco 
Institute. She had music in her soul, and the art to pour it out 
through her fingers' ends. It was an inheritance from her extraordi- 
nary father, as any judge of music would have said, who had heard 
the notes melting from that old black violin, on that rainy night in 
December. There are not many such instances of men springing 
from such humble origin in Eastern Mississippi; but this is not a soli- 
tary case. 

There emigrated from different States, North and South, at a remote 
period in the brief history of this new country, several young men of 
talent and great energy, who not only distinguished'themselves, but 
shed lustre upon the State. Among the first of these was George 
Poindexter, from Virginia ; Rankin, from Georgia, (but born in Vir- 
ginia;) Thomas B. Reid, from Kentucky; Stephen Duncan, and 
James Campbell Wilkins, from Pennsylvania. The most remark- 
able of these was George Poindexter. He was a lawyer by profes- 
sion and a Jeffersonian Republican in politics. Very early in life he 
became the leader of that party in the State, and was sent to Con- 
gress as its sole representative. Very soon he obtained an enviable 
reputation in that body as a statesman and a powerful debater. His 
mind was logical and strong ; his conception was quick and acute ; 
his powers of combination and application were astonishing ; his wit 
was pointed and caustic, and his sarcasm overwhelming. Unusually 
quick to perceive the weaker parts of an opponent's argument, his 
ingenuity would seize these and turn them upon him with a point 
and power not unfrequently confounding and destroying the effect 
of all he had urged. From Congress to the Gubernatorial chair of 
the State was the next step in his political career, and it was in this 
capacity that he rendered the most signal service to the State. As a 
lawyer, he was well aware of the wants of the State in statutory pro- 
visions for the protection of the people. These were wisely recom- 
mended, and, through his exertions, enacted into laws. 

The several Governments which had claimed and held jurisdiction 
over the Territory of Mississippi had issued grants to companies and 
individuals for large tracts of country in different portions of the 
State. These grants had not been respected by the succeeding Gov- 
ernments, or else the records had been lost or carried from the 
country for a time ; hence very many conflicting claims made insecure 
the titles of the proprietors now settled upon these tracts, and were 



336 THE MEMORIES OF 

fruitful of endless litigation. To remedy this evil, a statute was recom- 
mended by Governor Poindexter and enacted into a law, compelling 
suit to be commenced by all adverse claimants by a certain day. 
This effectually cured the evil, and a suit to establish titles is now 
very rare in Mississippi. As a judge he was able, prompt, impartial, 
unrivalled in talent, and, at the same time, unsurpassed by any lawyer 
in the State in legal learning. His administration of the laws was 
eminently successful. The country was new, with the exception of 
a few counties, and, as in all new and frontier countries, there were 
many bad and desperate men. To purge these from society it was 
necessary that the criminal laws should be strictly enforced. To do 
so required decision and sternness in the character and conduct of 
the judges. Very soon after Poindexter was placed on the Bench he 
manifested these attributes in an eminent degree. 

The stern, impartial justice administered to these lawless men, 
soon created quite a sensation with the class to which they belonged, 
and threats were freely thrown out against his life; but these had no 
effect in intimidating him, or in changing his conduct. He went on 
fearlessly to administer the law, which at that time, instead of impris- 
onment, inflicted severe corporal punishments for many crimes most 
common in a new country. These were branding with a hot iron in 
the hand or on the cheek, whipping on the bare back, and public 
exposure in the pillory. Not a court went by without some one of 
these punishments being inflicted upon a male malefactor. Public 
opinion had begun to look upon these penalties as barbarous, and in 
very many cases great sympathy was manifested for the culprit. 

This sentiment frequently operated with the jury, who were disposed 
to deal leniently with the accused. This was resisted by Poindexter, 
and eff"ectually — for so clearly did he impress the minds of jurors 
with what was their duty, that few escaped where the proof was suffi- 
cient to convict ; and once pronounced guilty, the extreme penalty 
of the law was surely awarded. The beneficial influence of this stern 
and inflexible administration of the laws was soon manifest, and the 
more orderly of the population unhesitatingly gave their approbation 
and support to the judge. He sustained in court the dignity of the 
Bench, restraining alike the license of the Bar and the turbulence of 
the populace. To do this, he was frequently compelled to exercise 
to the full the powers of his office. 

An amusing anecdote is related of him in connection with the dis- 



FIFTY YEARS. T^T,-] 

charge of these duties. When holding court at one time in Natchez, 
he had sent to jail a turbulent and riotous individual, who could in 
no other way be restrained. This fellow, once incarcerated, professed 
great contrition, and humbly petitioned for release, but Poindexter 
had ordered the sheriff to keep him for a week, and could not be 
moved from his position. At the expiration of the week he was 
released, and though he was quiet and orderly, he remained lurking 
about town and the court-room until the adjournment of court. He 
watched his opportunity, and meeting the judge upon the street, com- 
menced abusing him roundly; finally telling him he had waited pur- 
posely for the opportunity of whipping him, and that he intended 
then and there to do so. Poindexter, perceiving the sheriff on the 
opposite side of the street, called to him, and ordered him to open 
court then and there, which in all due form the sheriff proceeded to 
do. The bully was startled, and the judge, perceiving'this, remarked 
to him authoritatively, " Now, you scoundrel, be off with yourself, 
or I will put you in jail for one year!" — when the blackguard 
speedily decamped, to the infinite amusement of the crowd upon the 
street. 

Governor Poindexter found at Natchez, and a few other localities, 
strong opposition from the Federal party, then constituted almost 
entirely of emigrants from Western Pennsylvania, with a sprinkling 
from the more Eastern States. The party was small, but made up 
for this deficiency in numbers with zeal and violence. As with 
all heated and hating partisans, their malevolence was principally 
directed toward the leaders of the opposing party. 

Poindexter was the acknowledged leader of the Republican or Jeffer- 
sonian party, and concentrated on himself the hatred of one and the 
adoration of the other party. His triumphs were complete and over- 
whelming in every election. He was not scrupulous in the use of 
terms when speaking of his enemies. These anathemas, darting in 
the caustic wit and voluble sarcasm so peculiarly his, went to the 
mark, and kindled hatred into fury. It was determined to get rid of 
him. His denunciations of Abijah Hunt, a prominent merchant and 
leading Federalist, being more pointed and personal than toward any 
other, it seemed incumbent on him to challenge Poindexter to mortal 
combat — an arbitrament for the settlement of personal difficulties 
more frequently resorted to at that period than at the present time. 
They met, and Hunt was killed. But such was the violence of feeling 
29 W 



338 THE MEMORIES OF 

with his party friends, that they were determined Poindexter should 
not escape unscathed, and he was denounced as having fired before 
the word agreed upon in the terms of the conflict were fully enun- 
ciated. This, however, effected but little, and he continued the idol 
of his party. 

Unfortunately, that bane of genius, dissipation, was poisoning his 
habits and undermining his reputation. It seems that exalted genius 
feeds upon excitement, and in some shape must have it. The excite- 
ment of active business at the Bar or in the halls of legislation 
must of necessity be temporary, and the relaxation which follows 
this is terrible to the excitable temperament of ardent genius. It 
craves restlessly its natural food, and in the absence of all others, it 
seeks for this in the intoxicating bowl or the gaming-table. How 
many brilliant examples of "this fatal fact does memory call up from 
the vmtimely grave? These, culled from my seniors when I was a 
youth, from my compeers in early manhood, from the youth I have 
seen grow up about me, make a host whose usefulness" has been lost 
to the world. Well may the poet sing in melancholy verse that 
genius is a fatal gift. It dazzles as a meteor with its superhuman 
light, and as soon fades into darkness, lighting its path with a blaze 
of glory, astonishing and delighting the world, but consuming itself 
with its own fire. 

Poindexter had won greatly upon the affections of the people of 
the Territory, in the active part he had taken, in connection with 
General Ferdinand Claiborne and General Hinds, in stimulating the 
people to prepare to meet the exigencies of the war of 1812 with 
Great Britain. Her eastern territory was exposed to the inroads of 
the Creek Indians, a large and warlike tribe, who were hostile to the 
United States, and were in league with the English, "and being armed 
by them. The Choctaws and Chickasaws were on her northern 
frontier, and were threatening. An invasion by the way of New 
Orleans by English troops was hourly expected. It required great 
energy and activity to anticipate and guard against these threatening 
dangers. Poindexter employed his time and his influence to pre- 
pare the people to act efficiently and at a moment's warning. When 
the threatened invasion became a reality, and General Jackson was 
descending the river with troops as the American commander, and 
when the militia were on the ground, and nothing remained to be 
done in Mississippi, he promptly repaired to the scene of action and 



FIFTY YEARS. 339 

volunteered his services to Jackson, who, accepting them, placed him 
on his staff as a volunteer aide. 

In this capacity he continued to serve until the end of the cam- 
paign and the termination of the war. It was to him the negro or 
soldier brought the celebrated countersign of "Beauty and booty," 
found on the battle-field, and which he carried to General Jackson, 
His enemies laid hold of this incident and perverted it slanderously 
to his injury, by a.sserting the note to be a forgery of his, done for the 
purpose of winning favor with the General, and to cast odium upon 
an enemy incapable of issuing such an infamous countersign. 

Those who have read the history of the various strongholds of the 
French in Spain which were stormed during the Peninsular war, will 
remember these were the same troops and the same commanders, 
who were quite capable of the excesses in New Orleans that they 
committed in Spain. This slander was never traced ; but there were 
those remaining who, when the breach occurred between General 
Jackson and Governor Poindexter, asserted that General Jackson 
believed it, and who circulated industriously the contemptible slan- 
der. Poindexter was an active supporter of General Jackson's first 
election. He believed him honest and capable, and deserving of the 
reward of the Presidency for his services to the country. He thought, 
too, that he would bring back the Government to its early simplicity 
and purity, and administer it upon strictly republican principles. 
He, with very many of the Jeffersonian school, felt it had diverged 
from the true track. 

These people were opposed to protective tariffs, internal improve- 
ments by the United States Government within the limits of a State 
without the consent of the State, and a national bank, deeming all 
these measures unconstitutional. The constitutionality of the bank 
had been affirmed by the Supreme Court, and Poindexter had 
acquiesced in the decision. Nevertheless, as a senator from the 
State of Mississippi, he was in harmony with the Administration of 
Jackson, until Jackson began to send his personal friends and espe- 
cial favorites from Tennessee to fill the national offices located in 
Mississippi. Poindexter felt this as an insult to his State, and in the 
case of Gwinn's appointment as register of the Land-Office at Clin- 
ton, Mississippi, he opposed the nomination when sent to the Senate. 
He was successful in having it rejected. 

He urged that though the office was national, and every man in the 



340 THE MEMORIES OF 

nation was eligible to fill it, yet it was due to the State that the incum- 
bent should be selected from her own people, provided she could 
furnish one in every way qualified, and that it was a reflection upon 
the people of his State to fill the offices within her borders with 
aliens to her soil and interests — strangers to her people, with no 
motive to be obliging and respectful to them in the discharge of the 
duties of the office ; that the offices belonged to the people and not 
to the President, and it was respectful to the people of a State to 
tender to her people these offices, as had been heretofore the custom ; 
that simply being the President's favorite was not a qualification 
for office, and this departure from the established usages of former 
Administrations was a dangerous precedent, and would seem to estab- 
lish a property in the office, belonging to the President. 

This opposition enraged Jackson, who denounced Poindexter and 
persisted in his determination to give the office to Gwinn. In this he 
finally succeeded ; but most unfortunately for Gwinn, for it embroiled 
him in quarrels with the citizens of the State. A duel with Judge 
Caldwell was the consequence, in which both fell. Caldwell died 
immediately ; Gwinn survived to suffer intensely for a few months, 
when death relieved him. 

The people of Mississippi were intensely devoted to General Jack- 
son, and in the mad fury of partisan zeal forgot everything but party, 
nor permitted themselves for a moment to inquire into the official 
conduct of any political partisan, especially that of the President. 
Poindexter had been unhappy in his domestic relations. He had 
separated from his wife. He charged her with infidelity ; forgot his 
affection for his children, and threw them off, because he doubted 
their paternity. In the agony of mind consequent upon this he 
l)ecame desperate, and for years was reckless in his dissipations. 
His wife's friends were respectable and influential. They, with every 
personal and political enemy he had, united in ascribing to him all 
the blame in this matter. 

The northern portion of the State had been acquired from the 
Indians, and a population unacquainted with Poindexter or with his 
.services to the State was crowding into the new Territory in such num- 
bers as threatened politically to rule the State. These came princi- 
pally from the West and South, and were eminently Jackson ian in 
their politics. Many young aspirants for fame had sprung up in dif- 
ferent sections of the State, and these were in no way averse to seeing 



FIFTY YEARS. 341 

an old and talented politician shelved ; and they joined in the huzza 
for Jackson and down with his opponents. 

Seeing and feeling the tide setting in so strongly as to sweep every- 
thing before it except what comported with the views and wishes of 
General Jackson, and feeling also that he, with the minority in the 
Senate, could be of no possible use to the country, and beginning to 
experience the pressure of age, at the conclusion of his senatorial 
term he made no effort to be re-elected. He retired, disgu.sted with 
politics forever, and temporarily from the State. Subsequently an 
accident fractured both his legs below the khee, and for some years 
he was unable to walk. Prior to this event he had married a Boston 
lady — following the example of his divorced wife, who had married 
a Boston gentleman. With this lady he lived affectionately and hap- 
pily. He located in Lexington, Kentucky, where he remained only 
a few years. 

It was here I saw him, at his own house, for the last time — spend- 
ing an evening in company with Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John 
J. Crittenden, and the celebrated actress, Mrs. Drake. I enjoyed 
the hospitality, the wit, and a game of whist with him. He soon 
became weary of Lexington, His heart was in Mississippi, and 
thither he returned, old and worn. He took up his residence at 
Jackson, where in a short time he died, and is buried in the beauti- 
ful cemetery at that place. While paying a pilgrimage to the grave 
of a dear boy who died in defence of Jackson in 1866, I saw and 
paused at the modest stone which marks the grave of Governor Poin- 
dexter. Memory was busy with the past. My heart was sad. I had 
just looked upon the sod which covered my boy, and, thinking of 
the hours passed, long years ago, with him who was sleeping at my 
feet, I could not repress the tear due and dear to memory. 

Few men have served more faithfully and more efficiently a people 
than did George Poindexter the people of Mississippi. His talents 
were indisputably of the first order, and, whatever may have been 
his short comings morally, none can say his political life was stained 
with selfishness or corruption. Every trust reposed in him was 
faithfully and ably discharged, and to him, more than to any of 
her public servants, is she indebted for the proud position she occu- 
pied before the tyrants' heel was upon her neck. 

Few men can rise superior to the crushing effects of domestic 
infelicity: man's hopes, man's happiness, all centred in her whom 
29* 



342 THE MEMORIES OF 

he has chosen as the companion of his life. His love selects, and 
his love centres in her. The struggle for fortune, for happiness, for 
fame, is for her ; she shares every success, every misfortune ; and 
when she is kind and affectionate, there he meets with the true 
manliness of an honest and devoted heart. She smooths the brow 
of disappointment and sorrow, rejoices in his success, and, in the 
fulness of her confidence and affection, aids and encourages his 
exertions and enterprises. This reconciles him to life, and life's 
cares, troubles, and joys. His spirit is buoyant, come what may ; 
for there is an angel at home, and there is happiness with her : she 
is the mother of his children ; she unites with him in love and exer- 
tions for the benefit of these. They are one in these, and with 
every birth there is a new link to bind and gladden two hearts. 
Without the virtuous love of woman, man is a miserable being, 
worthless to himself and useless to his kind. But when the heart's 
wealth is given to one who has no sympathy with it, and gives only 
in return coldness and hate ; who betrays every confidence and dis- 
appoints every hope ; who is only happy when he is miserable, and 
refuses the generous aid a wife owes to his exertions ; who rejoices 
in his failures, and intrigues to produce them, and weeps over his 
successes with the bitterness of disappointment; who hates her off- 
spring, because they resemble their father ; who spurns his caresses, 
and turns away from his love — then life's hopes are blighted, and 
all is black before. His energies die out with his hopes; the goad- 
ing thought is eternally present; he shrinks away from society, and 
in solitude and obscurity hides him from the world — which too often 
condemns him as the architect of all his misery. 

" Oh, a true woman is a treasure beyond price, but a false one 
the basest of counterfeits." 



FIFTY YEARS. 343 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR. 

John A. Quitman — Robert J. Walker — Robert H. Adams — From a 
Cooper - Shop to the United States Senate — Bank Monopoly — 
Natchez Fencibles — Scott in Mexico — Thomas Hall — Sargent S. 
Prentiss — Vicksburg — Single - speech Hamilton — God - inspired 
Oratory — Drunk by Absorption — Killing a Tailor — Defence op 
Wilkinson. 

JOHN A. QUITMAN came to Mississippi in early life. He 
was a native of the State of New York ; had, at first, selected a 
location in Ohio, but, not being pleased, he determined on com- 
ing South, and selected Natchez for his future home. His father was 
a Prussian ; a minister of the German Lutheran Church, and a very 
learned man. He had preached in seven kingdoms, and in every 
one in the language of the country. He came to the State of New 
York when young, and was the bearer of the recognition of the 
independence of the United States by Frederick the Great, of Prus- 
sia. He settled in one of the interior counties of New York, where 
was born and reared his distinguished son. 

When young Quitman came to Natchez, he found the Bar a strong 
one ; but determined to follow the profession of law, and after a 
short time spent in the office of William B. Griffith, he was admitted 
to the Bar, and opened an office. Regardless of the overwhelming 
competition, his open, frank manners soon made him friends, and 
the stern honesty of his character won the confidence of every one. 
In a short time, he married the only daughter of Henry Turner, a 
wealthy planter, and was received into copartnership by William B. 
Griffith, a lawyer of great ability and eminence, then in full practice 
at Natchez, and who had married the daughter of Judge Edward 
Turner, and the cousin of Quitman's wife. Quitman's rise to emi- 
nence was rapid in his profession, but more so in the public estima- 
tion as a man of great worth. His affability, kindness, and courtesy 
were so genial and so unaffected as to fasten upon every one, and 
soon he was the most popular man in the county. 

Soon after Quitman, came Duncan and Robert J. Walker — the 



344 THE MEMORIES OF 

latter subsequently so distinguished as a senator in Congress from 
Mississippi, and still more distinguished as the Secretary of the 
Treasury during the Administration of Mr. Polk. A close intimacy 
grew up between Quitman and R. J. Walker. This intimacy influ- 
enced greatly the future of Quitman. Walker was from Pennsylvania, 
and had married Miss Bache, the niece of George M. Dallas, sister 
to the great Professor Bache, and great-granddaughter of Benjamin 
Franklin. Mrs. Walker was a lady of great beauty, of rare accom- 
plishments, and" distinguished for her modesty and womanly bearing. 
Mr. Bache, the father of Mrs. Walker, emigrated to Texas, was in 
the Senate of her Congress at the time she was received into the 
United States, and was the only man who voted against the union. 
He represented Galveston, and, after his death, that young city, in 
honor of his services, erected a monument to his memory. 

Walker was of ardent temperament, great abilities, strong will, 
intense application, and was soon, at the Bar, among the first law- 
yers in the State. He wanted the softness and genial qualities of 
Quitman, but was superior to him mentally; and in prompt, decisive 
action his was the stronger character, and controlled. Quitman, 
being intimately associated with the leading men of the party sup- 
porting Mr. Adams, had adopted their opinions and politics; 
Walker was an ardent supporter of Jackson, and claimed to be the 
first man who brought forward his name for the Presidency, when he 
was a citizen of Pennsylvania. Soon after the election of General 
Jackson, Quitman, displeased with Mr. Clay, abandoned his Whig 
associates, and united himself with the Democratic party, and from 
that time until his death was a devoted Democratic partisan. These 
two men exercised, perhaps, more influence in the State than any 
others of their day. 

Robert H. Adams and William B. Griffith, who were considered 
the ablest members of the Bar in the State, died young, and in the 
opening of their political career. Adams was a man of remarkable 
ability. He was a native of East Tennessee, and was a mechanic, 
with limited education, and without one single advantage save his 
talents. He came a stranger to Natchez, and in a few years was 
eminent in his profession, and intellectually one of the first men in 
the State — a man of fine appearance, with large head, and intellectual 
features. He was sent by the city of Natchez to the Legislature of 
the State, and such was the impression upon the members of his great 



FIFTY YEARS. 345 

abilities, that they, at the ensuing session, elected him to the United 
States Senate. He served but one session, but made, in that short 
period, a high reputation with the first minds of the nation. Returning 
home, he resumed his profession; and, after severe fatigue during the 
heated period of summer, he imprudently drank too freely of ice- 
water, and died from its effects. 

There was, at this time, no man of more promise in all the coun- 
try. He was but thirty-eight years of age, and, without patronage or 
patrimony, had risen from the cooper's shop to a distinguished posi- 
tion in the Senate of the United States. 

Griffith preceded him to the grave one or two years, a victim of 
yellow fever. 

Quitman and Walker came now prominently before the people. 
They resided in Natchez, and there was a strong prejudice in the 
east and the north of the State against the people of that city and 
the County of Adams. There were quite a number of families, in the 
city and county, of large fortunes. These were exclusive in their 
associations. With one or two exceptions they belonged to the Whig 
party, but none of them aspired to political preferment. 

There was but one bank in the State — this was located in Natchez, 
and was under the control of these men of fortune. It had at the 
time of obtaining its charter paid an extravagant bonus to the State, 
upon condition no other bank should be chartered for the period 
granted to this. It was a monopoly, and was charged with great 
partiality in its management. Its accommodations were for the few, 
and these only granted for the purpose of enhancing the already 
bloated wealth of the stockholders, directors, and their special pets. 
This exclusive aristocracy was odious to the fierce democratic feel- 
ings of the masses. They counted their wealth by millions ; their 
homes were palaces ; their pleasure-grounds Edens ; and all this was 
the fruit of an odious and oppressive monopoly. This fallacious and 
most ridiculous idea fastened itself upon the minds of the masses, 
and was fostered and encouraged by many who knew better, but who 
were willing to pander to the popular taste for popular preferment. 
R. J. Walker seized hold upon this popular whim, and leading the 
multitude, succeeded in procuring charters for several other banks, 
in defiance of the vested rights of the Bank of Mississippi. 

Stephen Duncan was the president of the bank, and, under his 
advice, the directors surrendered the charter, and wound up the 



34^ THE MEMORIES OF 

business of the bank. Duncan was one of the best business-men in 
the Union. From very small beginnings he had amassed an immense 
fortune — was a man of rare sagacity and wonderful energy. He was 
the cousin of Walker, but was always opposed to' him in politics. 
This was the commencement of the era which culminated in the 
repudiation of the State's obligations and the general ruin of her 
people. It was about this period that Jefferson Davis first made his 
dibut as a public man in the State, with William M. Gwinn, and 
Henry S. Foote, McNutt, J. F. H. Claiborne, and Albert Gallatin 
Brown. Quitman was made chancellor of the State, and disappointed 
sadly his friends. His administration of this branch of the judiciary 
was weak and wild ; a vast number of his decisions, or awards in 
chancery, were overruled, and, in disgust, or from a consciousness 
that a chancery judgeship was not his speciality, resigned. His mind 
was greatly overrated : it was neither strong, logical, nor brilliant. 
His classical attainments were of the first order, and I doubt if the 
Union furnished two better or more finished linguists than John A. 
Quitman and H. S. Foote. 

Walker and Davis were the leading minds of the period. They 
were both men of education, extended reading ; both men of fine 
oratorical p>owers ; both men of strong will, ripe judgment, and 
exceedingly tenacious of purpose. Walker was many years the senior 
of Davis, and was in advance of him some years as a successful poli- 
tician. Foote, as an orator, was greatly the superior of all of these ; 
but there was in him want of judgment, want of fixed principles and 
fixity of purpose. When first appearing before the people of the 
State, he carried the multitude with him as a tempest drives a feather. 
In a contest for Governor he came out in opposition to Quitman, 
drove him from the canvass, and triumphed over Davis, who was 
placed by bis party in nomination to fill the place of Quitman. This 
triumph was evanescent : he left the position, perhaps, the most un- 
popular man in the State. 

Quitman's abilities were almost exclusively military. This pro- 
clivity of mind manifested itself in very early life. He organized a 
volunteer company, the Natchez Fencibles, soon after he came to the 
Bar, and took great pride in its drill and soldierly bearing and 
appearance. He seized with avidity the opportunity the Mexican 
war presented, and there greatly distinguished himself. After the 
termination of this war, he was engaged (very little to the honor of 



FIFTY YEARS. 



347 



his sagacity) in endeavoring to organize a filibustering expedition 
against the Island of Cuba. In this he signally failed. He was 
elected to Congress, where he was principally distinguished by his 
extrenrie Southern views, but gained little or no reputation as a poli- 
tician or statesman. 

In the qualities of heart, Quitman was surpassed by no man ; his 
moral character was unstained. In sincerity and devotion to his 
friends, no man was his superior. He had acquired large wealth by 
his marriage — this he had increased by judicious management, and 
none more freely used it for the benefit of his friends or the public 
interest. He was especially generous toward poor, enterprising 
young men ; such instances of assistance rendered are innumerable. 
His friends never deserted him. To his command, during the Mexi- 
can war, he was exceedingly profuse with his means in aiding their 
necessities and supplying their wants. He was universally com- 
mented upon as the most munificent officer of the army. He was 
ambitious and courageous ; and this ambition knew no bounds. 

Upon his return from Mexico, I met him in New Orleans, in com- 
pany with that ill-starred man, General Shields, of Illinois, and who. 
Irishman as he was, fell fighting to fasten upon the South the fetters 
she now wears. We had not conversed ten minutes before, taking 
my arm, he walked apart from his visitors and Shields, and com- 
menced to converse upon the consequences of the war. Turning to 
me, he remarked: "General Scott is greatly wanting in ambition, 
he has no daring aspirations ; he has thrown away the finest oppor- 
tunity ever presented to man for aggrandizement. Had I com- 
manded the army, and accomplished this great success, I would 
have established an empire, and made of Mexico a great nation. 
He had only to say so, and the Mexicans were ready to crown 
him emperor. He could have made dukes, marquises, lords, and 
barons of his officers, and endowed them with principalities; the 
soldiers would have remained with him ; and in six months, enough 
from the United States and Europe would have joined his standard, 
to have held in check the lawless brigands who make anarchy for the 
country. The spoils of the Church would have rewarded the sol- 
diers ; immigration would have poured into the country, and bis name 
and fame have been commensurate with time. Everything invited 
him to the act ; he could not or would not see it — he had but one 
idea, 'This will make me President ! ' and a lifetime of glory and 



348 THE MEMORIES OF 

power was sacrificed for the empty hope of four years filling the 
Presidential chair. ' ' 

It was a grand conception, but he seemed to take no account of 
the difficulties which would have interposed. He assumed that the 
United States would have been content with the great outrage, and 
have sanctioned the act ; and that European nations would have 
immediately recognized the new empire. I knew him well enough 
to know that he would have attempted the enterprise and braved 
the consequences ; but doubt whether he or Scott had the talent for 
the accomplishment of such an undertaking. General Quitman was 
one of the unfortunates who received a portion of the poison pre- 
pared for some victim or victims at Washington upon the inaugura- 
tion of Mr. Buchanan. It was not immediately fatal, but he never 
fully recovered from it, and in a few months after sank into the 
grave. 

No man ever died more regretted by his personal friends than 
John A. Quitman. He was in every relation of life a true man, 
chivalrously brave, nobly generous, and sternly faithful to all that 
ennobles human nature. Had his brain been equal to his soul, he 
had been the world's wonder. It was said of him by one who knew 
and loved him : 



" His spirit has gone to the Spirit that made him, 
The rest of the virtuous, chivalric, and brave ; 
He sleeps where the friends of his early youth laid him, 
And green grows the laurel that springs by his grave." 

Duncan Walker practised law with his brother until elevated to 
the Bench of the criminal court for the city of Natchez and County 
of Adams. He served with distinguished capacity for only one or 
two y^ars, when he was prostrated by a severe attack of yellow fever. 
From this he never entirely recovered. Retiring from the Bench, he 
directed his attention to planting in Lower Louisiana ; but his health 
continuing to decline, he was induced to try for the winter the 
climate of Cuba. It was but a few weeks after reaching there that 
he died at St. Jago de Cuba. Judge Walker was distinguished for 
great purity of character as well as superior legal attainments. His 
modesty was almost feminine; yet he was a man of remarkable firm- 
ness and decision. By many he was thought superior intellectually 



FIFTY YEARS. 349 

to his more distinguished and prominent brother. Few men may be 
truthfully termed superior to R. J. Walker, 

In 1826, there came to Natchez, from Maine, a youth who was a 
cripple. He was without acquaintances or recommendations, and 
also without means. He was in search of a school, and expressed 
his intention of making the South his future home. His appearance 
was boyish in the extreme, for one who professed to be twenty years 
of age. At that time most of the planters in the region of Natchez 
employed private teachers in their families, who resided with the 
family as one of the household. A lady near Natchez, the widow 
of Judge Shields, was desirous of employing a teacher, and tendered 
the situation to the young Yankee. Mrs. Shields had grown-up sons, 
young men of fine attainments, and who subsequently distinguished 
themselves as men of sterling worth. They were soon delighted with 
the young stranger, who was busily employed in his new vocation 
with their younger brothers. I remember to have heard Mr. Thomas 
Shields say the young man teaching at his mother's was a most 
remarkable man, and narrate some instances of his great powers of 
memory, accompanied with facts which came within his own knowl- 
edge. These were so very extraordinary, that notwithstanding the 
high character for integrity borne by Shields, there were many who 
doubted them. 

There lived at no great distance from Mrs. Shields, a planter, Mr. 
Thomas Hall. This man was a coarse and illiterate overseer for 
some years in the county, but having carefully husbanded his earn- 
ings, was enabled, in company with James C. Wilkins, to commence 
planting upon an extensive scale. At the time this young man was 
teaching at Mrs. Shields', Hall had accumulated quite a fortune, and 
was a man of comparative leisure. His mind was good, and now 
that he had an abundance of the world's goods, and was becoming a 
man of consideration in the community, he felt, in his intercourse 
with his educated neighbors, the want of that cultivation which would 
make him their equal. This had made him morbidly sensitive, and 
whenever an opportunity presented, he improved it in acquiring all 
the information possible. 

On Saturdays the young schoolmaster would frequently ride over 

and converse with Hall. The strong mind and coarse but cordial 

manners of Hall pleased him. He was a specimen of the Southerner 

possessing salient points, and was a study for the Down-Easter. Never 

30 



350 THE MEMORIES OF 

before had he met such a specimen, and it was his delight to draw 
him out, little deeming he was filling the same office for his friend. 
They were mutually agreeable the one to the other, and their asso- 
ciation grew into intimacy. Each to their friends would speak of 
the other as a remarkable man. Assuredly they were ; for neither 
had ever met such specimens as they presented to each other. They 
sometimes joined in a squirrel-hunt about the plantation of Hall. 
The schoolmaster's lameness compelled him to ride, while Hall pre- 
ferred to walk. After a fatiguing tramp upon one occasion, they sat 
down upon the banks of Cole's Creek, where Hall listened with great 
delight to the conversation of his companion. Suddenly Hall started 
up, and exclaimed, with more than his usual warmth : 

"You have taught me more than I ever knew before meeting 
with you ; but I ought not to say what I am going to say. You, sir, 
were never made for a schoolmaster. By the eternal God ! " — Hall 
was a Jackson man — "you know more than any man in the county, and 
you have got more sense than any of them, though you are nothing 
but a boy. Now, sir, go to town and study law with Bob Walker ; 
he 's the smartest of any of them. In two years you will be ahead 
of him. If you haven't got the money to pay your way, I have, 
and you shall have it." 

The term for which he had engaged was now expiring, and, as 
Hall had requested, he went into the office of Robert J. and Dun- 
can Walker, and commenced the study of law. 

This Yankee youth was Sargent S. Prentiss. Prentiss remained in 
the office of Walker for one year, and was a close student. When 
admitted to the Bar, he went to Vicksburg and opened an office. At 
that time Vicksburg was a new place, and presented peculiar induce- 
ments to young professional men. The country upon the Yazoo 
River — and indeed the entire northern portion of the State — had 
but recently been quit of its Indian population, and was rapidly fill- 
ing up with an active and enterprising people. The soil wa.-* fer- 
tile, and the production of cotton, to which it is so eminently suited, 
was daily growing in importance. Vicksburg was the market-point. 
Trade was increasing daily, and rapidly filling up the town with mer- 
cantile men. The young and enterprising were hurrying thither, 
and in a few years there was met here more talent and more enter- 
prise than at any other point in the State. The Bar had Prentiss, John 
Guion, McNutt, Sharkey, the three Yergers, Anderson, Lake, Brook, 



FIFTY YEARS. 35 1 

Burwell, and many others of distinction, including the erratic H. S. 
Foote. 

The entire population was a live one, and every branch of business 
was pushed with a vim commensurate with the abilities and enter- 
prise of the population. The planters of the immediately adjacent 
country were men of intelligence and character, and were animated 
with the spirit of the people of the town, forming on the whole a 
community of almost reckless enterprise. It was at such a time and 
in the midst of such a people that young Prentiss had made his selec- 
tion of a home, and a field for the future exercise of his professional 
abilities. 

Young, ardent, and ambitious, he sought to rival his seniors at the 
Bar. Unwilling to wait on time, he aspired to leap at once to this 
equality. It was the daring of genius, and of a genius which counted 
as only .a stimulant the obstacles intervening. To grapple with giants, 
such as he found in Guion, Yerger, Sharkey, McNutt, and Lake, 
would have intimidated a less bold and daring mind ; but Prentiss 
courted the conflict coti amorc, and applying all his herculean powers 
with the vigor of youth and the ardency of enterprise, he soon found 
himself quite equal to any competitor. 

When an infant, a fever settled in his leg, causing it to wither from 
the knee to the foot, and doomed him through life to lameness. 
Like Byron, he was sensitive upon the subject of this physical defect. 
It wa-s a serious obstacle to his locomotion, and in speaking com- 
pelled a sameness of position injurious to the effect of his oratory. 
Scarcely had two years elapsed from the time of his admission to the 
Bar before his fame as a lawyer and advocate was filling the State. 
His business had increased to such an extent as to require his undi- 
vided attention, as he was employed in almost every important suit 
in that section of the State. His qualities of heart were as conspicu- 
ous as those of his brain, which had endeared him to the people of 
Vicksburg perhaps more than any other citizen. This social and 
professional popularity caused him to be elected to the Legislature of 
the State. He belonged to the Whig party, which was largely in 
the minority in the Legislature, but was powerful in talent. 

Before this time. Colonel Adam L. Bingaman, of Adams County, 
had been the acknowledged leader of this party. He was a man of 
rare qualifications for a popular leader — highly gifted by nature in 
mind and personal appearance, which was most splendid and com- 



352 THE MEMORIES OF 

manding, with a polished education and fascinating manners, and by 
nature an orator. Added to these advantages, he was a native of the 
State, the representative of great wealth, and with extensive family 
influence. These two met as friends personally and politically in the 
Legislature. 

Prentiss — though known as a great lawyer and a powerful advo- 
cate at the Bar — had until now taken but little part in politics. 
None knew of his proficiency as a politician or as a popular political 
orator, and, long accustomed to the eloquence and the debating abil- 
ities of Bingaman, the lead was accorded to him as usual. Party 
excitement was fierce, and involved every one. The Democracy, 
armed with numbers and men of great abilities, felt secure in their 
position. They had no fears that any powers possessed by any man 
or set of men could operate a change in public opinion dangerous 
to their supremacy in the State. 

Socially, Prentiss knew no party distinction. With all who were 
gentlemen he mingled, not as a partisan, but as a man. The kind- 
ness of his nature won upon all equally, and it was soon discovered 
that a personal favor to Prentiss would sometimes override party alle- 
giance. His personal friends were all gentlemen, and once within 
the magic influence of his social circle was enough to bind him to 
the heart of every one. The session had made but little progress 
before his powers as an orator were beginning to be felt. 

During an exciting debate, in which Bingaman had, as usual, taken 
the lead, when all the ablest of the Democracy had, as they supposed, 
exhausted the argument and demolished the position of their ad- 
versaries, and the House seemed impatient for the question, Prentiss 
rose, and claimed the attention of the chair. His clear and succinct 
statement of the pending question put a new phase upon it, and the 
House seemed surprised. 

He proceeded then to debate the question ; and very soon he was 
in medias res, and his bold and lucid argument won the attention 
of every one. The position of the Democracy was dissected to the 
separation of every fibre ; its character and future effects denounced 
and exposed in a strain of invective eloquence which thrilled to 
every heart. Turning from this to the national policy of the Demo- 
cracy, then in power, and which the measure under consideration 
was intended to aid and sustain, his powers seemed to expand with 
the magnitude of the subject, as he went on to analyze the policy and 



FIFTY YEARS. 353 

the measures of the Government, and to demonstrate the disastrous 
consequences which must follow these remotely, if not immediately, 
corrupting, undermining, and ultimately destroying the Constitu- 
tion, and, of consequence, the Government. He spoke for three 
hours; his peroration was so grandly eloquent as to bring down 
the House and galleries in a round of applause. 

From that day forward, Prentiss was the great man of the House 
and of the State. A fire in a prairie never spread or ran faster than 
his fame ; it was on every tongue, in every newspaper. Such fame 
from one speech had never been won by any man in America, save 
Patrick Henry. Single - speech Hamilton, of the British Parlia- 
ment, astonished England ; but he was never afterward heard of, and 
is known to this day as " single-speech Hamilton." As with Henry, 
this was but the beginning of a fame which was to grow and expand 
into giant proportions. Prentiss was now a national man. Soon 
after this, he visited Boston and New York during an exciting poli- 
tical campaign. Throughout the North, wherever he appeared and 
spoke, he bore the palm from every rival. 

The speech of Prentiss in Faneuil Hall will long be remembered 
as perhaps the finest specimen of oratory ever listened to in that 
venerable hall. It was at the time said by the men of the North 
to surpass the best efforts of Fisher Ames. Subsequently he spoke 
in New York, and for three hours held spell-bound an immense 
audience. 

The writer was informed by a venerable judge, of New Jersey, that 
he had never believed any man possessed such powers of oratory 
as to interest him and chain his attention for that length of time. 
Hearing this young man from the wilds of Mississippi could do so, 
he embraced the first opportunity of hearing him. When he reached 
the place, he found the assemblage very great, and with difficulty he 
succeeded in reaching a point where he might hear well. He was 
unable to procure a seat, and was compelled to stand, thoroughly 
jammed by the crowd. He took out his watch to time him, as he 
commenced, and noting the minute, he essayed to replace his watch : 
something said arrested his attention and his hands from their work 
of putting the watch in its fob. 

"There was something, sir, in his eye," said he, "which startled 
me, and then the words came bubbling up spontaneously a:> spring 
water, so full of power, so intensely brilliant, and his figures so bold, 
30* ' X 



354 THE MEMORIES OF 

original, and illustrating, and the one following the other in such 
quick succession ; the flights of imagination, so new, so eloquent, 
and so heart-searching — that I found it impossible to take my eyes 
from his face, or my ears from drinking in every word. At one 
time, so intense were my feelings under the effect of his words and 
the powerful impression they were making on my mind, that I 
thought I should faint. I forgot the presence of the crowd, and, 
though seventy years of age, felt no fatigue from my standing posi- 
tion. In truth, sir, I was unconscious of the time — equally so of the 
presence of any one but the speaker. I -perceived that his physical 
man was failing under his effort, and so intense was my sympathy 
that I found myself breathing rapidly and painfully ; and yet, when 
he exclaimed, ' My powers fail ! ' and sank into his seat completely 
exhausted, I regretted the necessity which compelled him to stop. 
It was not until then that I found my hand still holding my watch at 
the opening of its pocket, where, in my excitement, I had forgotten 
to deposit it. I looked, and I had been standing unmoved in the 
same position and intently listening for three hours and fifteen 
minutes. Near me stood one old as myself — a friend, a neighbor, 
and a minister of the gospel ; he was livid with excitement, and his 
lips trembled as he said to me: ' Will you ever doubt again that God 
inspires man ? ' " 

Notwithstanding the immense Democratic majority in the State, 
the Whigs determined to run Prentiss for Congress: the election, at 
that time, was by general ticket, and there were two members to be 
elected: the Whig nomination was Prentiss and Wood; the Demo- 
cratic, Claiborne and Gholson. 

Claiborne was a native of the State, and the son of General Ferdi- 
nand Claiborne, a young man of very superior abilities, and at the 
time a member of Congress. McNutt was the Democratic candidate 
for Governor. The campaign was a most animated one, and Pren- 
tiss addressed the people in very nearly every county in the State ; 
the people, en masse, flocked to hear him, and his name was in every 
mouth. The Democratic nominees did not attempt to meet him on 
the stump. His march through the State was over the heads of the 
people, hundreds following him from county to county in his ova- 
tion. McNutt alone attempted to meet him and speak with him, 
and he only once. McNutt was a Virginian, and was a man of 
stupendous abilities; he was a lawyer by profession, and was Governor 



FIFTY YEARS. 355 

of the State. Next to Poindexter, he was the ablest man who ever 
filled the chair. Unfortunately, like most of the young and talented 
of that day in the West, he was too much addicted to the intoxicating 
bowl. Upon the only meeting of these, Prentiss and McNutt, the 
latter, in his speech, urged as a reason for the rejection or defeat of 
the former his dissipated habits, admitted his great abilities, his 
masterly genius, pronounced him the first man of the age intellectu- 
ally, but deplored his habits, which were rendering him useless, with 
all his genius, learning, and eloquence. 

Prentiss, in reply, said: "My fellow -citizens, you have heard 
the charge against my morals, sagely, and, I had almost said, soberly 
made by the gentleman, the Democratic nominee for the chief exe- 
cutive office of this State : had I said this, it would have been what 
the laAvyers term a misnomer. It would be impossible for him to do 
or say anything soberly, for he has been drunk ten years ; not yester- 
day, or last week, in a frolic," or, socially, with the good fellows, his 
friends, at the genial and generous board — but at home, and by 
himself and demijohn ; not upon the rich wines of the Rhine or the 
Rhone, the Saone or the Guadalquivir; not with high -spirited or 
high-witted men, whose souls, when mellowed with glorious wine, 
leap from their lips sublimated in words swollen with wit, or 
thought brilliant and dazzling as the blood of the grape inspiring 
them — no; but by himself: selfish and apart from witty men, or 
ennobling spirits, in the secret seclusion of a dirty little back-room, 
and on corn-whiskey ! — these only, communing in affectionate bro- 
therhood, the son of Virginia and the spirits of old Kentucky ! 
Why, fellow - citizens, as the Governor of the State, he refused to 
sign the gallon-law until he had tested, by experiment, that a gallon 
would do him all day ! 

** Now I will admit, fellow-citizens, that sometimes, when in the 
enjoyment of social communion with gentlemen, I am made merry 
with these, and the rich wines of glorious France. It is then I enjoy 
the romance of life. Imagination, stimulated with the juice of the 
grape, gave to the world the Song of Solomon, and the Psalms of 
that old poet of the Lord — glorious old David. 

" The immortal verse of wandering old Homer, the blind son of 
Scio's isle, was the inspiration of Samian wine; and good old Noah, 
too, would have sung some good and merry song, from the inspira- 
tion of the juice of the vine he planted, but having to wait so long, 



35t) THE MEMORIES OF 

his thirst, like the Democratic nominee's here, became so great, that 
he was tempted to drink too deeply, and got too drunk to sing; and 
this, I fancy, is the true reason why this distinguished gentleman 
never sings. 

" Perhaps there is no music in his soul. The glug-glug-glug of his 
jug, as he tilts and pours from its reluctant mouth the corn-juice so 
loved of his soul, is all the music dear to his ear, unless it be the 
same glug-glug-glug as it disappears down his capacious throat. 
Now, fellow-citizens, during this ardent campaign, which has been 
so fatiguing, I have only been drunk once. Over in Simpson County 
I was compelled to sleep in the same bed with this distinguished 
nominee — this delight of the Democracy — this wonderful exponent 
of the principles and practices of the unwashed Democracy — and in 
the morning I found myself drunk on corn-whiskey. I had lain 
too close to this soaked mass of Democracy, and was drunk from 
absorption." 

This was more than the Governor could stand, and, amidst the 
shouts and laughter of the assembled multitude, he left the stand, 
and declined to meet again, before the people, the young Ajax Tel- 
emon of the Whig party. 

>The memory of that campaign will probably never be forgotten 
in Mississippi. Mothers, in stories of Prentiss, tell it now to their 
children, and it and he have become a tradition of the early days 
of Mississippi. The election terminated in the choice of Prentiss and 
Wood, by a small majority ; but the certificate was given, through 
the basest fraud, to Claiborne and Gholson. 

This was contested before the House of Representatives in Con- 
gress assembled, and the contestants permitted to be heard on the 
floor of the House. It was here, in the presence of the assembled 
wisdom of the nation, Prentiss was to sustain the reputation which 
had preceded him, and gloriously did he do it. When he rose to 
commence his speech, all was silent, and every face expressed deep 
and excited expectation. The unfortunate deformity of his leg was 
forgotten, in viewing the noble contour of his head and face. Young, 
and for the first time in such a presence — standing there the imper- 
sonation of the State of Mississippi, demanding justice for her at the 
hands of the nation — he seemed conscious of the responsibility, and 
confident of his power to sustain this. There was little preliminary 
in his remarks opening the matter. He went at once, and as a strong 



FIFTY YEARS 357 

man conscious of the right, to the core. He demonstrated, beyond 
a doubt, his election, and proceeded in a strain of burning invective 
to expose the fraud of the returning ofificer, who had shamefully dis- 
regarded the popular voice, and shamelessly violated the law he was 
sworn to obey, in giving the certificate to his defeated competitors. 
Never did the corruption of party receive so severe an exposition, or 
a more withering rebuke, than in this speech. 

Very soon after he commenced, the Senate chamber was deserted, 
and the Vice-President and Secretary were left alone. Webster, 
Benton, Calhoun, Clay, Wright, and Evans came in and ranged 
themselves near him. Every space large enough, in the chamber, 
lobby, and galleries, was filled with a listener, and all were still and 
unmoving, however painful their position, until the enunciation of 
the last word of that wonderful oration. The speech occupied two 
hours and forty minutes, and the peroration was thrilling. When 
exhausted, and closing, he lifted his eyes to the national flag, floating 
above the Speaker's chair, and said, in an almost exhausted voice, 
"If, Mr. Speaker, in obedience to the necessities and corrupt behest 
of party, you are determined to wrest from Mississippi her rights as a 
sister, and coequal in this union of States, and turn from their seats 
her representatives constitutionally chosen, and place in their stead 
the repudiated of her people, strike from the flag which waves above 
you the star which represents her there ; but leave the stripes, apt 
enkblem of your iniquity and her degradation." 

An adjournment was immediately moved ; the painful excitement 
was relieved, the spell was broken, and from every side, and from 
every party, came men to congratulate him. Webster was the first to 
stretch forth his hand, and with more animation than was his wont, 
said, in his deep, sonorous tones, "New England claims her own, 
and is proud of her son." 

The House, notwithstanding the demonstrative proof, and its en- 
forcement by the powerful and unanswerable argument of Prentiss, 
sent the election back to the State, to be determined by a new elec- 
tion. In this, Prentiss and Wood were triumphantly elected. He 
was not again a candidate, retiring for the time from politics, and 
giving his undivided attention to his profession. 

It was always a matter of astonishment, to all who could never 
make of a political enemy a personal friend, why it was that Prentiss, 
so bitter in his political denunciations of political partisans, and so 



7f$S THE MEMORIES OF 

bitter a partisan, should yet, among the opposition, have so many- 
warm admirers and most devoted friends. His nature was sensitive, 
generous, and confiding. There was no malice festering in his heart, 
and in his opposition, he was only so to the politics, not the per- 
sonal qualities of the man. By these he judged of the man, and the 
character of these regulated his conduct toward him. He did not 
pass through life without enemies. The man to whom this is possible 
is one of no positive points in his character, no strength of will, no 
fixity of purpose, and of but little intellect. Such men never occupy 
the public attention — are altogether negative, as well in action as in 
mind. The enemies of Prentiss were such from envy, or political 
hatred. His great abilities, when brought in contact with those 
suing for popular favor, so shrivelled and dwarfed them as to in- 
spire only fear and hatred. But men of this character were scarce in 
that day in Mississippi. Such was the tone of society, and such the 
education of her sons, that traits so dishonorable rendered odious 
the man manifesting them, and those of talent and education emi- 
grating to the country soon caught this spirit as by inoculation. If 
there were any who were influenced by such base and degrading 
motives, and wKo felt these a part of their nature, they most gener- 
ally could command policy enough to conceal them. 

No community is long in discovering the genuine from the counter- 
feit character. It did not require months to learn all the heart, all 
the nature of Prentiss. Too frequently are great abilities coupled 
with a mean spirit, and transcendent genius underlaid with a low, 
grovelling nature ; but these may be known by the peculiar form or 
development of the cranium. The high coronal developments dis- 
cover the intense moral organization : the lofty and expansive fore- 
head, the steafiy, unblenching eye, and the easy self-possession of 
manner are all indications of high moral organization, and the pos- 
session of a soul superior to envy, malice, and vindictive hatred, and 
one to which little meannesses are impossible. Such a head and 
such a soul had S. S. Prentiss.- His whole character was in his face, 
and so legible that the most illiterate could read it. This won to 
him like natures, and all such who knew him were instinctively his 
friends. 

Judge Wilkinson was such a man, and though as ardently Demo- 
cratic as Prentiss was Whig, and as uncompromising in his principles, 
yet these two were friends in the loftiest sense of the term. Judge 



FIFTY YEARS. 359 

Wilkinson had a difficulty with a tailor in Louisville, Kentucky, 
who attempted an imposition upon him to which he would not sub- 
mit. A quarrel ensued, and the knight of the needle and shears 
determined on revenge. Collecting about him his ready associates, 
they went to the hotel where Wilkinson lodged, and waylaid him at 
the door between the dining-parlor and the reception-room, and 
attacked him on his coming in from supper. In the rencontre three 
of the assailants were killed, and the remainder of the gang fled. 
Immediately surrendering himself, he was incarcerated and held for 
trial : although assaulted with murderous intent, and acting clearly 
in self-defence, he was denied bail. He was a stranger, and the 
prejudices of the court and the people of Louisville were so manifest 
that he demanded and obtained a chai"»ge of venire. 

The trial came off at Harrodsburg. Prentiss, learning the facts 
and the situation of his friend, volunteered immediately to deiend 
him in court, and to befriend him in any manner possible to him. 
The celebrated Ben Hardin was employed to assist in the prosecu- 
tion. The eyes of all Mississippi and Kentucky were turned to Har- 
rodsburg when this trial commenced. Others volunteered — and 
among these was John Rowan — to assist in the defence. But the 
case for Wilkinson was conducted exclusively by Prentiss. It con- 
tinued for some days. John Rowan — so celebrated in the State for 
his talents and great legal learning, as well as for his transcendent 
abilities as an advocate — sat by, and trusted all to Prentiss. 

There were many sparrings in the course of the trial between Har- 
din and Prentiss upon points in the law of evidence, and as to the 
admissibility or rejection of testimony, as also upon many points of 
the criminal law of England, whether changed or not by statutory 
provisions of the State. 

In one of these, Rowan handed an open authority to Prentiss, and 
was taunted by Hardin for the act, by saying: "Give your friend 
all the aid you can : he needs it." 

" I only preserved the book open at the page where Mr. Prentiss 
had marked the law," said Rowan: " he requires no aid from me, 
brother Hardin. With all your learning and experience, he is more 
than a match for you." 

This Hardin was not long in discovering, and especially did he 
feel it when Prentiss came to reply to his address to the jury. So 
long accustomed to defy competition as a criminal lawyer, Hardin 



360 THE MEMORIES OF 

was not only surprised at the tact and masterly talent displayed by 
his adversary, but he was annoyed, and felt that to maintain his 
prestige as the great criminal lawyer of Kentucky, he must put forth 
all his powers. He had done so ; and in his summing up before the 
jury he- seemed more than himself. When he had concluded there 
were many who deemed conviction sure. 

Prentiss followed, and in his grandest manner tore to tatters every 
argument and every position advanced and assumed by Hardin. 
Towering in the majesty of his genius in one of those transcendent 
flights of imagination so peculiar to him, when his illustrations in 
figures followed each other in such quick and constant succession as 
to seem inexhaustible, he turned suddenly upon Hardin, and, stoop- 
ing his face until it almost touched that of the stern old Kentuckian, 
he hissed forth : " Dare you, sir, ask a verdict of such a jury as is 
here sitting upon this testimony? — you, sir, who under the verdict 
of nature must soon appear before the awful bar to which you now 
strive prematurely to consign this noble, this gallant young man ! 
Should you succeed, you must meet him there. Could you, in the 
presence of Almighty God — He who knows the inmost thoughts — 
justify your work of to-day ? His mandate is not to the gibbet. 
Eternal Justice dictates there, whose decrees are eternal. Do you think 
of this ? Do you defy it ? If not — if you invoke it, do it through 
your acts toward your fellow-man. Have you to-day done unto this 
man as you would he should do unto you ? I pause for a reply — none. 
Then shudder and repent, for the record even now is making up against 
you in that high court from which there is no appeal. You, gentlemen 
of the jury, are no hired advocates : you are not laboring for blood- 
money. Though your responsibility to your God is equal to his, you 
will not go to the bar of your Creator with blood — guiltless blood — 
upon your consciences. You will not, as he will, in that awful pres- 
ence, on that eventful day, look around you for the accusing spirit 
of him whom you consigned to the gibbet with a consciousness of his 
innocence of murder. How will it be with you? (turning again to 
Hardin.) Ah ! how will it be with you? Still silent. Despite the 
hardness of his features, mercy like a halo sweeps over them, and 
speaks to you, gentlemen, eloquently : ' Acquit the accused ! ' Look 
over yonder, gentlemen : within these walls is one awaiting your ver- 
dict in tearless agony — she who but for this untoward event would 
now have been happy as his bride : she who has cheered him in his 



FIFTY YEARS. 361 

prison-cell daily with her presence and lovely soul ! Hers, not his 
fate, is in your hands. To him death is nothing : the brave defy 
death — the good fear it not ; then why should he fear ? But she ! 
O God ! it is a fearful thing to crush to death with agony the young, 
hopeful, and loving heart of virtuous woman. His death is only ter- 
rible in her future. Go with her, gentlemen, through life ; contem- 
plate the wan features of slow decay : see in these the one eternal, 
harrowing thought ; list to the sigh which rives the heart ; watch the 
tear which falls in secret; see her sink into the grave; then turn 
away, look up into heaven, and from your heart say: * O God ! I did 
it.' You will not; you cannot; you dare not." 

Hardin's conclusion was tame, and without effect ; the demonstra- 
tions on the part of the jury dispirited him, and his concluding 
speech had none of the power of his opening. The jury returned a 
verdict of not guilty, without hesitation. Wilkinson was imme- 
diately discharged, and in company with his friends was repairing to 
the hotel, when, in the warmth of his emotion, he said, laying his 
hand on the shoulder of Prentiss : " How shall I pay you, my friend, 
for this great service you have done me? " 

"By never ^nentioning pay again," was the prompt and decisive 
reply. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

A FINANCIAL CRASH. 

A Wonderful Memory — A Nation without Debt — Crushing the 
National Bank — Rise of State Banks — Inflated Currency — Grand 
Flare-up — Take Care of Yourself — Commencing Anew — Failing to 
Reach an Obtuse Heart — King Alcohol does his Work — Prentiss 
and Foote — Love Me, Love my Dog — A Noble Spirit Overcome — 
Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins. 

THE rare combination of the elements of the mind in Mr. 
Prentiss is only occasionally met with in time. Judgment, 
imagination, and .memory were all transcendent and equal in their 
respective powers. With such a mind, everything possible to man 
may be accomplished. The invention is rapid ; the combining and 
31 



362 THE MEMORIES OF 

applying responds as rapidly ; the fitting and the proper wait on these 
in the judgment, and the emanation of the whole is perfect. The 
imagination conceives, the memory retains, and the judgment ap- 
plies. The consummate perfection of all of these elements in one 
mind, assures greatness. Charles James Fox, one of England's 
ablest statesmen, said this combination, organized in the brain of 
Napoleon, was more complete than had existed with any man since 
the days of Julius Csesar, and would have made him transcendently 
great in anything to which he might have addressed his powers. As 
a poet, he would have equalled Homer ; as a lawyer, the author of 
the Pandects ; as an architect, Michael Angelo ; as an astronomer, 
Newton or Galileo; as an actor, Garrick, or his beloved Talma — as 
he had equalled Coesar and Hannibal, and greatly surpassed Marl- 
borough, Frederick the Great, and Charles XII. ; as an orator, 
Demosthenes ; and as a statesman, the greatest the earth ever knew. 

This combination in the mind of Prentiss, with the great develop- 
ment of the organ of language, made him the unrivalled orator of his 
age. His powers of memory were so great as to astonish even those 
eminently gifted in the same manner. In reading, he involuntarily 
committed to memory, whether of prose or poetry. He seemed to 
have memorized the Bible, Shakspeare, Dryden, Ben Jonson, Byron, 
and many others of the modern poets. The whole range of litera- 
ture was at his command: to read once, was always to remember. 
This capacity to acquire was so great that he would in a month 
master as much as most men could in twelve. 

It appeared immaterial to what he applied himself, the consequence 
was the same. Scientific research, or light literature ; the ordinary 
occurrences of the day, recorded in the newspapers, or detailed by an 
occasional visitor — all were remembered, and with truthful exact- 
ness. Dates, days, names, and events fastened upon his memory 
tenaciously, and remained there without an effort. Hence, the fund 
of information possessed by him astonished the best informed, who 
were gray with years and reading. The exuberance of his imagina- 
tion continually supplied new and beautiful imagery to his conversa- 
tion ; and in private intercourse, such was the rich purity of his 
language, and his ideas so bold and original, that all were willing 
listeners : no one desired to talk if Prentiss was present and would 
talk. 

The disasters which followed the commercial crisis of 1837 



FIFTY YEARS. 363 

crushed almost every interest in Mississippi: especially was this true 
of the planting, the great interest of the State. On the healthy 
condition of him who tills the soil depends that of every other 
interest. The rapid rise in cotton, commencing in 1832, from the 
increased demand all over the world for cotton fabrics, caused a 
heavy immigratiow to the fertile cotton-lands of the West, and par- 
ticularly to the extensive and newly acquired lands of Mississippi. 
The world was at peace, and great prosperity was universal ; money 
was cheap, or rather its representative, bank paper. The system of 
finance, so wisely conceived and put in practical operation subse- 
quently to the war of 1812, had been disturbed by being made an 
element in the political struggles of party. It had paid the war debt, 
and all the expenses of the Government — furnished a uniform cur- 
rency, equal to, and at the holder's will convertible into coin. Its 
face was the nation's faith, and its credit equal in New York, London, 
and Calcutta. A surplus fund was accumulating in the United States 
Treasury, and the unexampled instance of a nation out of debt, and 
with an accumulating surplus of money in her treasury, was presented 
to the world by the United States. 

The political economist, from this fact, would naturally infer that 
the people were heavily taxed : not so ; there was not on earth a 
people who contributed, in proportion to their means, so little to the 
support of their Government. The tax-gatherer of the nation was 
never seen or known in the house of any citizen ; he knew not that he 
contributed one dollar to the public treasury. So admirably was the 
source of revenue contrived, that no man knew or felt he paid a 
national tax. The Bank of the United States received and dis- 
bursed the moneys arising from customs, or tariffs upon imports, 
without one cent of expense to the Government ; affording at the 
same time every healthy facility to the commerce of the country — 
holding in check and confining the local State banks to a legitimate 
business — and was the most complete and perfect fiscal agent ever 
organized. In the struggle for party ascendency, the idea was con- 
ceived of using the bank in aid of one of the factions which divided 
the country. The machinators of this scheme failed to accomplish 
it, and, being in po\fer at the time, determined to destroy it, upon 
the plea of its unconstitutionality, and of having been used to over- 
turn the Government — that is, the party in power. It was declared 
dangerous to the liberties of the country. 



364 THE MEMORIES OF 

At the expiration of its charter, then approaching, it was refused a 
renewal. So intimately was it connected with every interest in the 
country, that its passing out of existence threatened universal bank- 
ruptcy. Its branches located at every important commercial point, 
its credit was imiversally employed. It furnished exchange at almost 
a nominal rate upon every commercial city of the world, and per- 
meated every transaction, giving health and vigor as the circulating 
fluid does the animal system. 

Suddenly to arrest and destroy this, was universal ruin. But to 
sene the behest of party in a double form, it was crushed. But a 
substitute was proposed by the party interested, and upon whom the 
responsibility rested — the creation of State banks without limit, which 
were recommended to discount liberally to the people, and supply the 
wants created by the withdrawal of the capital and accommodations 
of the national bank. This recommendation was literally and instantly 
obeyed. In every State where the dominant party held control — and 
they did so throughout the South and West — the legislatures made 
haste to create, without limit. State banks, with power to flood the 
country with irresponsible bank paper. Each assumed that it must 
supply not only its portion, but the entire amount of the banking 
capital withdrawn, and double or treble the circulation. The 
natural consequence was immense inflation of the currency, or cir- 
culating medium, and the rapid appreciation of every species of 
property in price. Everybody and every interest flourished most 
prosperously — gaunt poverty had fled the land, and bloated abun- 
dance laughed in every home. Suddenly men sprang into import- 
ance who a little while before were humble artizans or employed in 
the meanest capacities. A new El Dorado had been discovered ; 
fortunes were made in a day, without enterprise or work ; and unex- 
ampled prosperity seemed to cover the land as with a golden canopy 
— forests were swept away in a week ; labor came in crowds to the 
South to produce cotton ; and where yesterday the wilderness dark- 
ened over the land with her wild forests, to-day the cotton planta- 
tion whitened the earth — production was quadrupled — labor doubled 
in value, land rose to fearful prices, the wildest extravagance obtained ; 
costly furniture, expensive equipages, ostentatious display — all were 
contributing to hasten the catastrophe. The wise saw what was 
impending, and the foolish thought it impossible. All of this was 
based on credit. The banks were irresponsible, for they were with- 



FIFTY YEARS. 365 

out capital : they had created a credit and loaned it in the shape of 
bank paper to every one. Finally, the hour came when all was to be 
paid for. The banks failed — like the fame of woman, a whisper 
destroys it ; so a whisper blew away the banks. They could not 
redeem their promises to pay. These were no longer available for 
currency : they had driven from the country the coin, and there was 
no money. The merchants failed, the planters failed, money appre- 
ciated to the gold standard, and property correspondingly depre- 
ciated ; and ruin — financial ruin — swept over the country as a 
consuming fire. 

Nowhere was this destruction so complete as in Mississippi. The 
people of the State had been collected from all the States of the 
West and South. There was no common bond but interest ; a 
liealthy public sentiment, which must result from a homogeneous 
population, was unknown ; there was no restraining influence upon 
the conduct of men, save only the law, and, for the want of efificient 
administration, this was almost powerless. Every one was making 
haste to be rich; speculation was wild, and everyday was witnessing 
transactions of doubtful morality. Society was a chaos, and sauve 
qui pent, or, take care of yourself, the rule. Every one who owed 
money, however inconsiderable the sum, was ruined. Under such 
circumstances, Prentiss determined on removing from Mississippi, 
and selected New Orleans for his future home. The civil law, or 
Roman Code, was the law in Louisiana, and materially differed from 
the common or English law, which was the law of authority in Mis- 
sissippi. Very few lawyers coming from the common -law States, 
have ever been able to succeed in Louisiana, especially after having 
practised in other States for any length of time. They have not 
only to learn the civil law, but to unlearn the common. Some, who 
did not know the extraordinary powers of Prentiss's mind, feared he, 
like many others who had made the attempt, would fail ; but, almost 
from the moment of his advent at the New Orleans bar, his success 
was complete. To realize the expectations of the public, required 
abilities and attainments of the highest order. Fame had heralded 
his name and powers to every one : all had and did expect from him 
more than from any other man, and none were disappointed. From 
this time forward he eschewed politics, and devoted himself to his 
profession. 

Some years before leaving Mississippi, Prentiss had married Miss 
31* 



366 THE MEMORIES OF 

Williams, of Adams County. This lady was the daughter of James 
C. Williams, a large planter ; her mother was a Percy, descended 
from the proud Percys of Northumberland, and was a most accom- 
plished and intellectual woman. Her position was the first among 
the first, and her birth, blood, and attainments entitled her to 
the distinction. Her daughter, grown up under her eye and train- 
ing, was the mother's equal, and fit companion for the man of her 
choice. 

Prentiss had lost everything in the general crash, and was com- 
mencing anew, with a growing family to provide for. His business 
rapidly increased, and his displays at the Bar were frequent and 
wonderful. Some of these, recited here, might, if such a necessity 
existed, serve to illustrate his wonderful powers ; but there are par- 
ties living whose feelings might suffer, and hence I forbear. It is 
my earnest wish, in recording these recollections, to offend no one; 
nor will I "set down aught in malice." 

The ardent and excitable temperament of Prentiss, combined 
with his social qualities, required constant excitement. When em- 
ployed with the duties of his profession, or engaged in any matter 
of business pertaining to politics, or his relations in any capacity 
with the world, requiring attention, he was sufficiently excited to 
afford escape for the restlessness of his mind ; nor did this man 
seem fatigued in such occupations sufficiently to require repose 
and rest. On the contrary, it seemed to whet his desire for fiercer 
and more consuming excitement. Whenever he went abroad, the 
crowd followed him, and the presence of the increasing mass stimu- 
lated his feelings to mild, social delight, and this led him too fre- 
quently to indulge beyond a proper temperance in the exhilaration 
of wine. This, superadded to the fire of his genius, was wearing fear- 
fully his vigorous physique. 

For the first time, in the case of fraud against James Irwin, in 
which he made one of the most powerful efforts of his life, he mani- 
fested mental as well as physical fatigue. It was my good fortune to 
listen to that speech made to a New Orleans jury. I had listened 
many times to his speeches, and had thought some of these could 
never be surpassed by any man, not even by himself, and especially 
that delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and the one delivered from 
the steps of the court-house at Vicksburg, after returning from his 
political campaign when a candidate for Congress. But this one 



FIFTY YEARS. 367 

was even grander and more powerful than any I had ever heard from 
him. Returning from the court-house with him upon that occasion, 
I remarked a flagging in the brilliancy of his conversation. For a 
moment he sat silent in the carriage, and then remarked: " I was 
never so much fatigued ; I am afraid I am getting old. I have not 
an idea in my brain." 

" Certainly, you have poured out enough to-day to empty any 
brain," was my reply; " and you should be content not to have an- 
other for a month. But I am sorry your invective was so severe." 

" Ah ! my old friend," he continued, " he deserved it all ! From 
my heart I feel he deserved it all ! The magnitude of his iniquities 
inspired the rebuke, and I exhausted my quiver in the attempt to 
pierce his shame ; but I failed. The integuments of his sensibility 
are armor against the shafts from my bow ; and I feel the failure, 
but I don't regret the attempt : the intention was as sincere as the 
failure has been signal." 

" Why, what do you mean?" I asked ; " for, assuredly, you have 
to-day made the most powerful and telling speech of your life." 

"Yes, telling upon the audience, perhaps, but not upon the victim 
— he escapes unscathed. I care nothing for the crack of the rifle, 
if the bullet flies wide of the mark. I wanted to reach his heart, 
and crush it to remorse ; but I have learned his moral obtusity is 
superior to shame. I have failed in my attempt." 

This speech was followed by a challenge to Prentiss from the son 
of Irwin. This was promptly accepted, and a meeting was only pre- 
vented by the interference of parties from Kentucky, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana. The settlement was honorable to both parties. Soon 
after, young Irwin died by his own hand. He was a youth of bril- 
liant parts, and promised a future of usefulness and distinction. 

The habits of Prentiss were daily growing worse — the excitement 
he craved he found in the intoxicating bowl. The influence of his 
lovely and loving wife greatly restrained him ; but when she was 
away, he was too frequently surrounded by his friends and admirers, 
and in social conviviality forgot the prudence of restraint, and in- 
dulged to excess. The more this indulgence was tolerated, the more 
exacting it became. The great strength of his nervous system had 
successfully resisted the influence of these indulgences, and after 
potations deep and long, it was remarked that they had no inebriating 
effect upon him. This nervous strength by degrees yielded to the 



368 THE MEMORIES OF 

power of alcohol, and as he advanced in life it was apparent the 
poison was doing its work. 

Now it was that he found it necessary, in order to stimulate his 
genius to its wonted activity and vigor, on occasions demanding all 
his powers, to resort to artificial stimulants. His friends urged upon 
him temperance, to forbear altogether, to visit his mother and friends 
in Maine, recreate amidst the scenes of his childhood, and to do so 
in company with his wife and his lovely children, for they were all a 
parent could wish them to be. He promised to do so. Sad memory 
brings up our last meeting, and when the subject of his intemperance 
was the theme of our parting conversation. We stood together upon 
the portico of the St. Charles Hotel ; he was preparing to leave for 
Maine ; I was leaving for my home in the country. 

" You still keep the old cane," he said, taking from my hand his 
gift many years before. 

" I shall do so, Prentiss, while I live." 

He continued to view the head, upon which our names were en- 
graved, and a melancholy shade gathered upon his features. "Oh, 
were I," said he, "to-day, what I was the day I gave you this! " 
and he paused many minutes ; still the shade darkened, and his voice 
trembled as he proceeded: "We were both young then, and how 
light our hearts were ! We have gathered about us household gods, 
and we worship them ; how sad to think we shall have to leave them ! 
You married long before I did. Your children will grow up while 
yet you live ; I shall never see mine other than children." 

" Say not so, Prentiss. You are yet young. You have but one 
thing to do, and you will live to see those boys men ; and what may 
you not expect of them, with such a mother to aid you in rearing 
them ! " 

"I know what you mean, and I know what I will ; but, like Lao- 
coon in the folds of the snake, the serpent of habit coils around me, 
and I fear its strength is too powerful for mine. Perhaps, had my 
angel of to-day been my angel when first a man, I had never wooed 
the scorpion which is stinging me to death ; but all I can do I will. 
This is all I can promise. Keep this stick to remember me : it will 
support you when tottering with the weight of years, and with 
strength will endure. When age has done her work, and you are in 
the grave, give it to your son to remember us both. Farewell." 
With a clasp of the hand we parted, never to meet again. Not long 



F I F T Y YEAR S. 369 

after, he died at Natchez, and, in the family cemetery of the Sargents, 
sleeps near the city. 

But few of the speeches of Prentiss were ever reported, and though 
they are like and have the ring of the true metal, yet not one of them 
is correctly reported. The fragment given in a former chapter is the 
report of one who heard it, and who wrote it the very hour of its 
delivery, to myself, that the information of the acquittal might be 
communicated to the friends of the lady Judge Wilkinson was about 
to be married to, who resided in my immediate neighborhood. 
There is not a word of it in the reporter's speech, which was sometime 
after written out from notes. These speeches, with the traditions of 
his fame, will serve to perpetuate his memory as perhaps the most 
gifted man, as an orator, that adorned his generation. 

In stature he was below the ordinary standard, and his lameness 
seemed to dwarf even this. His head was large, round, and high ; 
his forehead expansive, high, and rising almost perpendicularly above 
his eyes, which were gray, deep set, and brilliant ; his nose was 
straight and beautifully chiselled, thin, and the nostrils large, and 
swelling and expanding when excited. In speaking, his eyes blazed 
with a most peculiar expression. His chin was broad, square, and 
strong. His mouth was the most striking feature of his face — large 
and flexible, with a constant twitching about the corners. The entire 
contour of the face indicated humor, combined with firmness. This 
latter trait was also indicated in the large, sttong under jaw — no trait 
was more pron;iinent in his character than this. Yet he was slow to 
anger, and always conciliatory in language and manners. He was 
charitable in the extreme toward others for any laches in principle ; 
always ready to find an excuse for the short-comings of others. Yet 
no man adhered more closely and more steadily to his principles 
and opinions. He never gave an insult, unless greatly provoked, but 
never failed to resent one ; always loath to quarrel, but, once in, bore 
himself like a man, and a brave one. The high oval crown of his 
head confessed high moral qualities ; here the moral organs were in 
wonderful development. Too generous to be malicious, he was ever 
ready to forgive, and too noble to permit his worst enemy to be 
slandered in his presence. 

There was once a quarrel between Prentiss and that erratic man of 
wonderful genius, H. S. Foote. This culminated in a hostile meet- 
ing, in which Foote was wounded. In their impulsiveness these two 
Y 



^yo THE MEMORIES OF 

w ere very like, as also in the generosity of their natures. Neither 
bore the other malice beyond the conflict, and neither ever per- 
mitted an insult to be offered to the name of the other in his absence. 
A short time after this affair, Prentiss was with some friends in Cin- 
cinnati. There is always to be found men who swell their impor- 
tance by toadying men of character and eminence. Such are as fre- 
quently found in Cincinnati as elsewhere. 

One of these had sought out Prentiss, and was attempting to make 
himself agreeable to him by abusing Foote : this abuse wound up 
by denouncing the distinguished Mississippian as a dog. Prentiss 
turned sharply upon him with the exclamation : " If he is a dog, 
sir, he is our dog, and you shall not abuse him in my presence ! " 
The discomfiture of the toady may be easily imagined ; he slunk 
away, nor did he again obtrude his unwanted presence upon Prentiss 
during his stay. 

Few men have ever so fastened themselves upon the affections of 
their friends as did Prentiss : his qualities of heart and head were 
fascinating, almost beyond humanity ; none ever met him for a day 
and went away unattached ; strangers, who knew him not, listening 
to him, not only admired, but loved him. He never lost a friend ; 
and all his enemies were political, or from envy. In the society of 
ladies he was extremely diffident. and unobtrusive, and always appre- 
hensive lest he should be unable to entertain them agreeably. 

On one occasion, not long before our final parting, he said he 
had committed two great errors in his life : leaving his native home 
to find one in the South, and not marrying when he first com- 
menced the practice of law.' " My constitution 'was strong and 
suited to a northern climate, and there home-influences would have 
restrained propensities that have grown with indulgen(;e, and are 
threatening in their consequences. I feel this : I am not the strong 
man I was ; mind and body are failing, and the beautiful lines of 
our friend Wild are constantly recurring to my mind : 

" ' My life is like the autumn leaf, 

Which trembles in the moon's pale ray : 
Its hold is frail, its date is brief, 
Restless, and soon to pass away.' 

"Why did not Wild give his life to literature, instead of the musty 
maxims of the law. Little as he has written, it is enough to preserve 



FIFTY YEARS. , 37l 

his fame as a tnie poet ; and though he has been a member of Con- 
gress, and a distinguished one, a lawyer, and a distinguished one, 
his fame and qame will only be perpetuated by his verse, so tender, 
so touching, and so true to the feelings of the heart. It is the heart 
that he lives in. Ah ! it is the heart only which forms and fashions 
the romance of life; and without this romance, life is scarcely worth 
the keeping. 

"Tis midnight — on the mountains brown 
The cold round moon shines deeply down ; 
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky 
Spreads like an ocean hung on high, 
Bespangled with those isles of light, 
So wildly, spiritually bright ; 
Who ever gazed upon them shining, 
And turned to earth without repining. 
Nor wished for wings to flee away. 
And mix with their eternal ray ? ' 

We feel as Byron did when he imagined these lines. I see him with 
upturned eyes gazing on the blue expanse above, watching the stars ; 
thinking of heaven ; feeling earth, and hating it, and his soul flying 
away from it, to meet and mingle in the firmament above him with 
the spiritually bright and heavenly pure brilliants sparkling on her 
diadem. How mean — how miserably mean this earth, and all it 
gives ! One diamond in a world of dirt. The soul that loves and 
contemplates the eternal — shall it shake off at once the miserable 
clod, and in a moment glisten among the millions, pure, bright, and 
lovely as these ? There is but one idea of hell — eternal torture ! 
But every man has his own idea of heaven : yet, with all, its chiefest 
attribute is eternal happiness. The wretch craves it for rest ; he 
who never knew care or suffering, desires it for enjoyment ; and the 
wildest imagination sublimates its bliss to love and beauty. And God 
only knows what it is, or in what it consists. But we shall know, 
and I, in a little time. On Him who gave me being I confidently 
rely for all which is destined in my future." 

His spirit was eminently worshipful. The wisdom and goodness 
of God he saw in every creature ; he contemplated these as a part of ^ 
the grand whole, and saw a union and use in all for the harmony of the 
whole ; he saw all created nature linked, each filling and subserving 
a part, in duties and uses, as designed, and, his mind filled with the 



37? THE MEMORIEiS OF 

contemplation, his soul expanded in love and worship of the great 
Architect who conceived and created all. 

With all this might of mind and beauty of soul, there lurked a 
demon to mar and destroy. It worked its end : let us draw a veil 
over the frailties of poor human nature, and, in the admiration of 
the genius and the soul, forget the foibles and frailties of the body. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS. 

Sugar OT. Cotton — Acadia — A Specimen of Mississippi French L1F5 — 
Bayou La Fourche — The Great Flood — Theological Arbitration — 
A Rustic Ball — Old-fashioned Weddings — Creoles and Quadroons 
The Planter — Negro Servants — Gauls and Anglo-Normans — Anta- 
(X)NisM OF Races. 

FORTY years ago, there was quite an excitement among the cot- 
ton-planters, in the neighborhood of Natchez, upon the subject 
of sugar-planting in the southern portion of Louisiana. At that time 
it was thought the duty (two and a half cents per pound) on imported 
sugars would be continued as a revenue tax, and that it would afford 
sufficient protection to make the business of sugar -planting much 
more profitable than that of cotton. The section of country attract- 
ing the largest share of attention for this purpose was the Teche, or 
Attakapas country, the Bayous La Fourche, Terre Bonne, and Black. 
The Teche and La Fourche had long been settled by a population, 
known in Louisiana as the Acadian French. These people, thus 
named, had once resided in Nova Scotia and Lower Canada, or 
Canada East as now known. When peopled by the French, Nova Scotia 
was called Acadia. Upon the conquest by the English, these people 
were expelled the country, and in a most inhuman and unchristian 
manner. They were permitted to choose the countries to which 
they would go, and were there sent by the British Government. 
Many went to Canada, some to Vincennes in Indiana, some to St. 
Louis, Cape Girardeau, Viedepouche, and Kaskaskia in Mississippi, 
and many returned to France. 



FIFTY YEARS. 373 

Upon the cession, or rather donation to Spain of Louisiana by 
France, these, with many others of a population similar to these, 
from the different arrondissements of France, were sent to Louisiana, 
and were located in Opelousas, Attakapas, La Fourche, and in the 
parishes of St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and St. James (parishes 
constituting the Acadian coast on the Mississippi). On the La 
Fourche they constituted, forty years ago, almost the entire popula- 
tion. They were illiterate and poor. Possessing the richest lands 
on earth, which they had reclaimed from the annual inundations of 
the Mississippi River by levees constructed along the margins of the 
stream — with a climate congenial and healthful, and with every 
facility afforded by the navigation of tlje bayou and the Mississippi for 
reaching the best market for all they could produce — yet, with all 
these natural advantages, promising to labor and enterprise the most 
ample rewards, they could not be stimulated to industry or made lo 
understand them. 

They had established their homes on the margin of the str^..m, and 
cleared a few acres of the land donated by the Government, upon which 
to grow a little corn and a few vegetables. With a limited amount of 
stock, which found subsistence upon the cane and grass of the woods, 
and with the assistance of a shot-gun, they managed to subsist — as 
Peake's mother served the Lord — after a fashion. 

Their houses were unique : a slender frame, often of poles cut from 
the forest, and rudely squared, served the purpose. Into the stud- 
ding were placed pins, extending from one to the other, horizontally, 
and about ten inches apart. The long gray moss of the country was, 
then gathered and thrown by layers into a pit dug for the purpose, 
with the soil, until the pit was full, when water was added in suf- 
ficient quantities to wet the mass through ; this done, all who are 
assisting in the construction of the house — men, women, boys, and 
girls — jump in upon it, and continue to tramp until mud and moss are 
completely intermingled and made of proper consistence, when it is 
gathered up and made into rolls about two feet long. These rolls 
are laid over the pins, commencing at the bottom or sill of the build- 
ing, when each roll is bent down at the ends, covering the intervals 
between the pins, pressed hardly together, and smoothed with the 
hands, inside and out, forming a wall some five inches in thickness, 
with a perfectly smooth surface. The roof is first put on, and the 
floors laid. When this mud dries thoroughly it is white-washed ; the 
32 



374 THE MEMORIES OF 

house is then complete, and presents quite a neat appearance. It 
will continue to do so if the white-washing is annually continued. If, 
however, this is neglected, the lime falls off in spots, and the primi- 
tive mud comes out to view : then the appearance is anything but 
pleasant. No pains are taken to ornament their yards, or gather 
about them "comforts. There is a pig or two in a pen in the corner 
of the yard, a hen-roost immediately at the house, a calf or two at 
large, and numerous half-starved, mangy dogs — and innumerable rag- 
ged, half-naked children, with little, black, piercing eyes, and dishev- 
elled, uncombed hair falling about sallow, gaunt faces, are comming- 
ling in the yard with chickens, dogs, and calves. A sallow-faced, 
slatternly woman, bareheaded, with uncared-for hair, long, tangled, 
and black, with her dress tucked up to her knees, bare-footed and 
bare-legged, is wading through the mud from the bayou, with a dirty 
pail full of muddy Mississippi water. 

A diminutive specimen of a man, clad in blue cottonade pants and 
hickory shirt, barefooted, with a palm-leaf hat upon his head, and 
an old rusty shot-gun in his hands, stands upon the levee, casting an 
inquiring look, first up and then down the bayou, deeply desiring 
and most ardently expecting a wandering duck or crane, as they fly 
along the course of the bayou. If unfortunately they come within 
reach of his fusee, he almost invariably brings them down. Then 
there is a shout from the children, a yelp from the dogs, and all run 
to secure the game; for too often, "No duck, no dinner." Such 
a home and such inhabitants were to be seen on Bayou La Fourche 
forty years ago, and even now specimens of the genuine breed may 
there be found, as primitive as were their ancestors who first ven- 
tured a home in the Mississippi swamps. 

The stream known as Bayou La Fourche, or The Fork, is a large 
stream, some one hundred yards wide, leaving the Mississippi at the 
town of D'onaldsonville, eighty miles above the city of New Orleans, 
running south-southeast, emptying into the Gulf, through Timbalier 
Bay, and may properly be termed one of the mouths of the Missis- 
sippi. Its current movement does not in high water exceed three 
miles an hour, and when the Mississippi is at low water, it is almost 
imperceptible. Large steamers, brigs, and schooners come into it 
when the river is at flood, and carry out three or four hundred tons 
of freight each at a time. 

The lands upon the banks of this stream are remarkably fertile, 



FIFTY YEARS. 375 

entirely alluvial, and decline from the bank to the swamp, generally 
some one or two miles distant. This Acadian population was sent 
here during the Spanish domination, and with a view to opening up 
to cultivation this important tract of country. It was supposed they 
would become — under the favorable auspices of their emigration to 
the country, and with such facilities for accumulating money — a 
wealthy and intelligent population. This calculation was sadly dis- 
appointed. The mildness of the climate and the fruitfulness of the 
soil combined to enervate, instead of stimulating them to active indus- 
try, without which there can be no prosperity for any country. A 
few acres, though half cultivated, were found sufficient to yield an 
ample support, and the mildness of the climate required but little 
provision for clothing. Here, in this Eden upon earth, these people 
continued to live in a simplicity of primitive ignorance and indo- 
lence scarcely to be believed by any but an actual observer. Their 
implements of agriculture were those of two centuries before. More 
than half the population wore wooden shoes, when they wore any at 
all. Their wants were few, and were all supplied at home. Save a 
little flour, powder, and shot, they purchased nothing. These were 
paid for by the sale of the produce of the poultry-yard — the prudent 
savings from the labor of the women — to the market-boats from the 
city. 

There were, at the period of which I write, but half a dozen Ameri- 
cans upon the bayou. These had found the country illy adapted to 
the growth of cotton, and some of them had commenced the plant- 
ing of sugar-cane. The results from this were very satisfactory, 
and consequently stimulating to the enterprise of men of means, who 
felt they could be more profitably employed in this new culture than 
in cotton, even in the very best cotton regions. 

There was one man of high intelligence and long experience who 
denied this — Stephen Duncan, of Natchez — and the subsequent 
experience of many brought bitter regret that they had not yielded 
to the counsels of Dr. Duncan. 

The great flood of 1828 had not touched the La Fourche or Teche, 
while the entire alluvial plain above had been covered many feet, 
and for many months. This was the most terrible inundation, per- 
haps, ever experienced in that region ; and every one appeared to be 
now satisfied that to continue to cultivate lands already reduced to 
man's dominion, or to open and prepare any more, subject to this 



376 T H E M E M O R I E S O F 

scourge, was madness. Hence the emigration from this chosen section 
to the new El Dorado. Lands rose rapidly in South Louisiana as 
an effect of this, while above, in the flooded district, they were to be 
bought for almost a nominal price. Those who ventured to purchase 
these and reduce them to cultivation realized fortunes rapidly ; for 
there was not a sufficient flood to reach them again for ten years. 
The levees by this time had become so extended as to afford almost 
entire immunity against the floods of annual occurrence. The cul- 
ture of sugar received a new impetus and began rapidly to increase, 
and capital came flowing in. Population of an industrious and hardy 
character was filling up the West, and the demand from that quarter 
alone was equal to the production, and both were increasing so 
rapidly as to induce the belief that it would be as much as all the 
sugar lands in the State could accomplish to supply this demand. 
Steam power for crushing the cane was introduced — an economy of 
labor which enhanced the profits of the production — and a new and 
national interest was developed, rendering more and more independ- 
ent of foreign supply, at least that portion of the Union most diffi- 
cult of access to foreign commerce — the great and growing West. 

The Americans, or those Americans speaking English alone, immi- 
grating into these sections of Louisiana, so far as the language, man- 
ners, and customs of the people were concerned, were going into a 
foreign land. The language of the entire population was French, 
or a patois, as the European French term it — a provincialism which 
a Parisian finds it difficult to understand. The ignorance and squalid 
poverty of these people put their society entirely out of the question, 
even if their language had been comprehensible. They were amiable, 
kind, law-abiding, virtuous, and honest, beyond any population of 
similar character to be found in any country. Out of some fifty 
thousand people, extending over five or six parishes, such a thing as 
a suit for slander, or an indictment for malicious mischief, or a case 
of bastardy was not known or heard of once in ten years. This will 
seem strange when we reflect that at this time schools were unknown, 
and not one out of fifty of the people could read or write, and when 
it was common for the judge of the District Court to ask, when a 
grand jury was impanelled, if there was a man upon it who could 
write, that he might make him foreman. And not unfrequently was 
he compelled to call from the court-room one who could, and trump 
him on the jury for a foreman, as the action was termed. There 



FIFTY YEARS. 377 

was not upon the La Fourche, which comprised three large parishes, 
but one pleasure carriage, and not half a dozen ladies' bonnets. 
The females wore a colored handkerchief tastily tied about their 
heads, when visiting or at church ; and when not, not anything but 
blowzed, uncombed hair. 

The enterprise of the new-comers did not stimulate to emulation 
the action of these people. They were content and unenvious, and 
when kindly received and respectfully treated, were social and gen- 
erous in their intercourse with their American neighbors. They 
were confiding and trustful ; but once deceived, they were not to be 
won back, but only manifested their resentment by withdrawing 
from communicating with the deceiver, and ever after distrusting, 
and refusing him their confidence. They were universally Catholic ; 
consequently, sectarian disputes were unknown. They practised 
eminently the Christian virtues, and were constant in their attendance 
at mass. The priest was the universal arbiter in all disputes, and his 
decision most implicitly acquiesced in. They had a horror of debt, 
and lawsuits, and would sacrifice any property they might have, to 
meet punctually an obligation. Fond of amusements, their social 
meetings, though of most primitive character, were frequent and 
cordial. They observed strictly the exactions of the Church, espe- 
cially Lent ; but indulged the Carnival to its wildest extent. Out of 
Lent they met to dance and enjoy themselves, weekly, first at one, 
and then at another neighbor's house ; and with the natural taste of 
their race, they would appear neatly and cleanly dressed in the attire 
fabricated by their own hands in the loom and with the needle. 

The method of invitation to these reunions was simple and speedy. 
A youth on his pony would take a small wand, and tie to its top end 
a red or white flag, and ride up and down the bayou, from the house 
where the ball was intended, for two or three miles ; returning, tie 
the wand and flag to flaunt above the gate, informing all — " This is 
the place-.' ^ All were welcome who came, and everything was con- 
ducted with strict regard to decent propriety. Nothing boisterous 
was ever known — no disputing or angry wrangling, for there was no 
cause given ; harmony and happiness pervaded all, and at pro]x;r 
time and in a proper manner all returned to their homes. 

Marriages, almost universally, were celebrated at the church, as in 
all Catholic countries. The parsonage is at the church, and the 
priest always on hand, at the altar or the grave ; and almost daily, 
32* 



378 THE MEMORIES OF 

in this dense population, a marriage or funeral was seen at the church. 
It was the custom for the bride and groom, with a party of friends, 
all on horseback, to repair without ceremony to the church, where 
they were united in matrimony by the good priest, who kissed the 
bride, a privilege he never failed to put into execution, when he 
blessed the couple, received his fee, and sent them away rejoicing. 
This ceremony was short, and without ostentation ; and then the 
happy and expectant pair, often on the same horse, would return 
with the party as they had come, with two or three musicians playing 
the violin in merry tunes on horseback, as they joyfully galloped 
home, where a ball awaited them at night, and all went merry with 
the married belle. 

These people are Iberian in race, are small in stature, of dark com- 
plexion, with black eyes, and lank black hair ; their hands and feet 
are small, and beautifully formed, and their features regular and 
handsome ; many of their females are extremely beautiful. These 
attain maturity very early, and are frequently married at thirteen 
years of age. In more than one instance, I have known a grand- 
mother at thirty. As in all warm countries, this precocious maturity 
is followed with rapid decay. Here, persons at forty wear the 
appearance of those in colder climates of sixty years. Notwithstand- 
ing this apparent early loss of vigor, the instances of great longevity 
are perhaps more frequent in Louisiana than in any other State of the 
Union. This, however, can hardly be said of her native population : 
emigrants from high latitudes, who come after maturity, once accli- 
mated, seem to endure the effects of climate here with more impu- 
liity than those native to the soil. 

The Bayou Plaquemine formerly discharged an immense amount 
of water into the lakes intervening between the La Fourche and the 
Teche. These lakes have but a narrow strip of cultivable land. 
Along the right margin of the La Fourche, and the left of the Teche, 
they serve as a receptacle for the waters thrown from the plantations 
and those discharged by the Atchafalayah and the Plaquemine, which 
ultimately find their way to the Gulf through Berwick's Bay. They 
are interspersed with small islands : these have narrow strips of tillable 
land, but are generally too low for cultivation ; and when the Mis- 
sissippi is at flood, they are all under water, and most of them many 
feet. The La Fourche goes immediately to the Gulf, between Lake 
Barataria and these lakes, affording land high enough, when protected 



FIFTY YEARS. 379 

as they now are, for settlement, and cultivation to a very great extent. 
Its length is some one hundred miles, and the settlements extend 
along it for eighty miles. These are continuous, and nowhere does 
the forest intervene. 

At irregular distances between these Acadian settlements, large 
sugar plantations are found. These have been extending for years, 
and increasing, absorbing the habitats of these primitive and inno- 
cent people, who retire to some little ridge of land deeper in the 
swamp, a few inches higher than the plane of the swamp, where they 
surround their little mud -houses with an acre or so of open land, 
from the products of which, and the trophies of the gun and fishing- 
line and hook, and an occasional frog, and the abundance of craw- 
fish, they contrive to eke out a miserable livelihood, and afford the 
fullest illustration of the adage, " Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly 
to be wise." 

The contrast between these princely estates, and the palatial man- 
sions which adorn them, and make a home of luxuriant beauty, and 
the little log huts, their immediate neighbors, tells at once that the 
population is either very rich or very poor, and that under such 
circumstances the communication must be extremely limited ; for the 
ignorance of the poor unfits them for social and intelligent inter- 
course with their more wealthy and more cultivated neighbors. 
This is true whether the planter is French or American. The 
remarkable salubrity of the climate, combined with the comforts 
and luxuries of home, causes the planter to -spend most .of his time 
there, where he can give his attention to his business and mingle with 
his brother planters in a style and manner peculiar to Louisiana and 
the tastes of her people. Intercommunication is facilitated by steam- 
boat travel, and as every plantation is located upon a navigable stream, 
the planter and family can at any time suiting his business go with 
little trouble to visit his friends, though they may be hundreds of 
miles apart. Similarity of pursuit and interest draw these together. 
There is no rivalry, and consequently no jealousy between them. 
All their relations are harmonious, and their intercourse during the 
summer is continuous, for at that season the business of the plantation 
may be safely trusted to a manager, one of whom is found on every 
plantation. 

This social intercourse is highly promotive of a general amity, as 
it cultivates an intimacy which at once familiarizes every one with 



380 THE MEMORIES OF 

the feelings, situation, and intentions of the other. Sometimes the 
contiguity of plantations enables the families of planters to exchange 
formal morning and evening calls, but most generally the distance 
to be overgone is too great for this. Then the visiting is done by 
families, and extends to days, and sometimes weeks. Provisions are 
so abundant that the extra consumption is never missed, and the resi- 
dences are always of such dimensions that the visitors seem scarcely 
to increase the family — never to be in the way ; and the suits of 
apartments occupied by them were built and furnished for the pur- 
pose to which they are then devoted. The visitor is at home. The 
character of the hospitality he is enjoying permits him to breakfast 
from seven till ten, alone, or in company with the family if he chooses. 
Horses, dogs, and guns for the gentlemen — billiards, the carriage, 
music, or promenading, with cards, chess, backgammon, or domi- 
nos for the ladies, to pass away the day until dinner. At this meal 
the household and guests unite, and the rich viands, wines, and coffee 
make a feast for the body and sharpen the wit to a feast of the soul. 
This society is the freest and most refined to be found in the country. 

Upon the coast of the Mississippi, from Baton Rouge to many 
miles below the city, the proximity of the large plantations presents 
an opportunity of close and constant intercourse. A very large 
majority of these are the property and habitations of the cultivated 
and intelligent Creoles of the State. And here let me explain the 
term Creole, which has led to so many ludicrous, and sometimes to 
painful mistakes. It is -an arbitrary term, and imported from the 
West Indies into Louisiana. Its original meaning was a native born 
of foreign parents ; but universal use has made it to mean, in Lou- 
isiana, nothing more than simply "native; " and it is applied indis- 
criminately to everything native to the State — as Creole cane, Creole 
horse, Creole negro, or creole cow. Many confound its meaning 
with that of quadroon, and suppose it implies one of mixed blood, 
or one with whose blood mingles that of the African — than which 
no meaning is more foreign to the word. 

The Creole planters, or what are termed French Creoles, are 
descended from a very different race from the Acadian Creole, or 
Iberian. The first colonists who came to Louisiana were men of the 
first blood and rank in France. The Ibervilles, the Bienvilles, St. 
Denises, and many others, were of noble descent ; and the proud 
prestige of their names and glorious deeds still clings around their 



FIFTY YEARS. 38 1 

descendants now peopling the lands they conquered from the desert, 
the savage, and the flood. These daring men brought with them 
the chivalrous spirit which descended to their sons — the open, gallant 
bearing ; the generous hospitality ; the noble humanity ; the honor 
which prefers death to a stain, and the soul which never stoops to 
a lie, a fraud, or a meanness degrading to a gentleman. They have 
been born upon the banks of the great river of the world ; they have 
seen all the developments of talent, time, and enterprise which have 
made their country great as the river through which it flows. Accus- 
tomed from infancy to look upon this scene and these developments, 
their souls with their ideas have been sublimated, and they are a 
population unsurpassed in the higher attributes of humanity, and the 
nobler sympathies of man, by any on the face of the earth — sur- 
rounded by wealth, tangible and substantial, descending from gene- 
ration to generation, affording to each all the blessings wealth can 
give. 

The spirit of hospitality and independence has ennobled the sons, 
as hereditary wealth and privilege had the sires who planted this 
colony. These sires laid the foundation of this wealth, in securing 
for their posterity the broad acres of this fat land where now they 
are to be found. None have emigrated: conscious of possessing the 
noblest heritage upon earth, they have remained to eliminate from 
this soil the wealth which in such abundance they possess. As they 
were reared, they have reared their sons; the lessons of truth, virtue, 
honor have borne go'od fruit. None can say they ever knew a French 
Creole a confirmed drunkard or a professional gambler. None ever 
knew an aberration of virtue in a daughter of one. 

The high-bred Creole lady is a model of refinement — modest, 
yet free in her manners ; chaste in her thoughts and deportment ; 
generous in her opinions, and full of charity ; highly cultivated 
intellectually and by association ; familiar from travel with the 
society of Europe ; mistress of two, and frequently of half a dozen 
languages, versed in the literature of all. Accustomed from infancy 
to deport themselves as ladies, with a model before them in their 
mothers, they grow up with an elevation of sentiment and a propriety 
of deportment which distinguishes them as the most refined and 
polished ladies in the whole country. There is with these a softness 
of deportment and delicacy of expression, an abstinence from all 
violent and boisterous expressions of their feelings and sentiments, 



382 THE MEMORIES OF 

and above all, the entire freedom from petty scandal, which makes 
them lovely, and to be loved by every honorable and high-bred gen- 
tleman who may chance to know them and cultivate their association. 
Indeed, this is a characteristic of the gentlemen as well as the ladies. 

These people may have a feud, and sometimes they do ; but this 
rarely remains long unsettled. No one will ever hear it publicly 
alluded to, and assuredly they will never hear it uttered in slanderous 
vituperation of the absent party. I may be permitted here to narrate 
an incident illustrative of this peculiarity. 

A gentleman, knowing of a dissension between two parties, was 
dining with one of them, in company with several others. This 
guest spoke to the hostess disparagingly of the enemy of her hus- 
band, who, hearing the remark, rebuked his officious guest by re- 
marking to him : " Doctor, my lady and myself would prefer to find 
out the foibles and sins of our neighbors ourselves." The rebuke 
was effectual, and informed the doctor, who was new in the country, 
of an honorable feeling in the refined population of the land of his 
adoption alien to that of his birth, and which he felt made these 
people the superior of all he had ever known. 

No one has ever travelled upon one of those palatial steamers 
abounding on the Mississippi, in the spring season of the year, when 
the waters swell to the tops of the levees, lifting the steamer 
above the level of the great fields of sugar-cane stretching away 
for miles to the forest on either bank of that mighty river, who has 
not been delighted with the lovely homes, surrounded with grounds 
highly cultivated and most beautifully ornamented with trees, shrubs, 
and flowers, which come upon the view in constant and quick succes- 
sion, as he is borne onward rapidly along the accumulated waters of 
the great river. This scene extends one hundred and fifty miles up 
the river, and is one not equalled in the world. The plain is con- 
tinuous and unbroken ; nor hill nor stream intersects it but at two 
points, where the Plaquemine and La Fourche leave it to find a nearer 
way to the sea; and these are so diminutive, in comparison with all 
around, that they are passed almost always without being seen. 

The fringe of green foliage which is presented by the trees and 
shrubs adorning each homestead, follows in such rapid succession as 
to give it a continuous line, in appearance, to the passers-by on the 
steamer. These, denuded of timber to the last tree, the immense 
fields, only separated by a ditch, or fence, which spread along the 



FIFTY YEARS. 383 

river — all greened with the luxuriant sugar-cane, and other crops, 
growing so vigorously as at once to satisfy the mind that the rich- 
ness of the soil is supreme — and this scene extending for one hundred 
and fifty miles, makes it unapproachable by any other cultivated 
region on the face of the globe. Along the Ganges and the Nile, 
the plain is extensive. The desolate appearance it presents — the 
miserable homes of the population, devoid of every ornament, with- 
out comfort or plenty in their appearance — the stinted and sparse 
crops, the intervening deserts of sand, the waste of desolation, 
spreading away far as the eye can reach — the streams contemptible 
in comparison, and the squalid, degraded, thriftless people along 
their banks, make it painful to the beholder, who is borne on his 
way in some dirty little craft, contrasting so strangely with the Mis- 
sissippi steamer. Yet, in admirable keeping with everything else, all 
these present a grand contrast to the valley of the Mississippi, and 
only prove the latter has no equal in all that pertains to grandeur, 
beauty, and abundance, on the globe. To appreciate all these, you 
must know and mingle with the population who have thus orna- 
mented, with labor and taste, the margin of this stream of streams. 
As this great expanse of beauty is a fairy-land to the eye, so is 
the hospitality of its homes a delight to the soul". In this population, 
if nowhere else in America, is seen a contented and happy people 
— a people whose pursuit is happiness, and not the almighty dollar. 
Unambitious of that distinction which only wealth bestows, they are 
content with an abundance for all their comforts, and for the com- 
fort of those who, as friends or neighbors, come to share it with 
them. Unambitious of political distinction, despising the noisy tumult 
of the excited populace, they love their homes, and cultivate the 
ease of quiet in these delicious retreats, enjoying life as it passes, 
in social and elegant intercourse with each other, nor envying 
those who rush into the busy world and hunt gain or distinction from 
the masses, through the shrewdness of a wit cultivated and debased 
by trade, or a fawning, insincere sycophancy toward the dirty mul- 
titude they despise. By such, these people are considered anom- 
alous, devoid of energy or enterprise, contented with what they 
have, nor ambitious for more — which, to an American, with whom, 
if the earth is obtained, the moon must be striven for, is stranger 
than all else — living indolently at their ease, regardless of ephe- 
meral worldly distinctions, but happy in the comforts of home, and 



384 THE MEMORIES OF 

Striving only to make this a place for the enjoyment of themselves 
and those about them. 

To the stranger they are open and kind, universally hospitable, 
never scrutinizing his whole man to learn from his manner or dress 
whether he comes as a gentleman or a sharper, or whether he pro- 
mises from appearance to be of value to them pecuniarily in a trade. 
There is nothing of the huckster in their natures. They despise 
trade, because it degrades ; they have only their crops for sale, and 
this they trust to their factors ; they never 'scheme to build up char- 
tered companies for gain, by preying upon the public ; never seek to 
overreach a neighbor or a stranger, that they may increase their 
means by decreasing his ; would scorn the libation of generous wine, 
if they felt the tear of the widow or the orphan mingled with it, 
and a thousand times would prefer to be cheated than to cheat ; 
despising the vicious, and cultivating only the nobler attributes of 
the soul. 

Such is the character of the educated French Creole planters of 
Louisiana — a people freer from the vices of the age, and fuller of 
the virtues which ennoble man, than any it has fallen to my lot to 
find in the peregrinations of threescore years and ten. The Creoles, 
and especially the Creole planters, have had little communication 
with any save their own people. The chivalry of character, in them 
so distinguising a trait, they have preserved as a heritage from their 
ancestors, whose history reads more like a romance than the lives 
and adventures of men, whose nobility of soul and mind was theirs 
from a long line of ancestors, and brought with them to be planted 
on the Mississippi in the character of their posterity. 

Is it the blood, the rearing, or the religion of these people 
which makes them what they are ? They are full of passion ; yet 
they are gentle and forbearing toward every one whom they suppose 
does not desire to wrong or offend them ; they are generous and 
unexacting, abounding in the charity of the heart, philanthropic, 
and seemingly from instinct practising toward all the world all the 
Christian virtues. They are brave, and quick to resent insult or 
wrong, and prefer death to dishonor ; scrupulously just in all trans-' 
actions with their fellow-men, forbearing toward the foibles of others, 
without envy, and without malice. In their family intercourse they 
are respectful and kind, and particularly to their children : they are 
cautious never to oppress or mortify a child — directing the parental 



FIFTY YEARS. 385 

authority first to the teaching of the heart, then to the mind — instil- 
ling what are duties with a tenderness and gentleness which win the 
affections of the child to perform these through love only. Pro- 
priety of deportment toward their seniors and toward each other is 
instilled from infancy and observed through life. All these lessons 
are stamped upon the heart, not only by the precepts of parents and 
all about them, but by their example. 

The negro servants constitute a part of every household, and are 
identified with the family as part of it. To these they are very kind 
and forbearing, as also to their children, to whom they uniformly 
speak and act gently. A reproof is never given in anger to either, 
nor in public, for the purpose of mortifying, but always in private, 
and gently — in sorrow rather than in anger ; and where punish- 
ment must be resorted to, it is done where only the parent or master, 
and the child or servant, can see or know it. This is the example 
of the Church. The confessional opens up to the priest the errors 
of the penitent, and they^are rebuked and forgiven in secret, or pun- 
ished by the imposition of penalties known only to the priest and his 
repentant parishioner. Is it this which makes such models of chil- 
dren and Christians in the educated Creole population of Louisiana? 
or is it the instinct of race, the consequence of a purer and more 
sublimated nature from the blue blood of the exalted upon earth? 
The symmetry of form, the delicacy of feature in the males, their 
manliness of bearing, and the high chivalrous spirit, as well as the 
exquisite beauty and grace of their women, with the chaste purity of 
their natures, would seem to indicate this as the true reason. 

All who have ever entered a French Creole family have observed 
the gentle and respectful bearing of the children, their strict yet 
unconstrained observance of all the proprieties of their position, and 
also the affectionate intercourse between these and their parents, and 
toward each other — never an improper word ; never an improper 
action ; never riotous ; never disobedient. They approach you with 
confidence, yet with modesty,^ and are respectful even in the mirth 
oi childish play. Around the mansions of these people universally 
are pleasure-grounds, permeated with delightful promenades through 
parterres of flowers and lawns of grass, covered with the delicious 
shade thrown from the extended limbs and dense foliage of the great 
irees. These children, when wandering here, never trespass upon a 
l^arterre or pluck unbidden a flower, being restrained only by a sense 
33 Z 



386 THE MEMORIES OF 

of propriety and decency inculcated from the cradle, and which 
grows with their growth, and at maturity is part of their nature. 
Could children of Anglo-Norman blood be so restrained ? Would 
the wild energies of these bow to such control, or yield such obe- 
dience from restraint or love? Certainly in their deportment they 
are very different, and seem only to yield to authority from fear of 
punishment, and dash away into every kind of mischief the moment 
this is removed. Nor is this fear and certainty of infliction of pun- 
ishment in most cases found to be of sufficient force to restrain these 
inherent proclivities. 

Too frequently with such as these the heart-training in childhood 
is neglected or forgotten, and they learn to do nothing from love as 
a duty to God and their fellow-beings. The good priest comes not 
as a minister of peace and love into the family; but is too frequently 
held up by the thoughtless parent as a terror, not as a good and lov- 
ing man, to be loved, honored, and revered, and these are too fre- 
quently the raw-head and bloody-bones painted to the childish 
imagination by those parents who regard the rod as the only reformer 
of childish errors — who forget the humanities in inspiring the brutal- 
ities of parental discipline, as well as the pastoral duties of their voca- 
tion. They persuade not into fruit the blossoms of the heart, but 
crush out the delicate sensibilities from the child's soul by coarse 
reproofs and brutal bearing toward them. The causes of difference 
I cannot divine, but I know that the facts exist, and I know the dif- 
ference extends to the adults of the two races. 

The Anglo-American is said to be more enterprising, more ener- 
getic and progressive — seeks dangers to overcome them, and subdues 
the world to his will. The Gallic or French-American is less enter- 
prising, yet sufficiently so for the necessary uses of life. He is more 
honest and less speculative ; more honorable and less litigious ; more 
sincere with less pretension ; superior to trickery or low intrigue ; 
more open and less designing; of nobler motives and less hypocrisy; 
more refined and less presumptuous,, and altogether a man of more 
chivalrous spirit and purer aspirations. The Anglo-American com- 
mences to succeed, and will not scruple at the means: he uses any 
and all within his power, secures success, and this is called enter- 
prise combined with energy. , Moral considerations are a slight 
obstacle. They may cause him to hesitate, but never restrain his 
action. The maxim is ever present to his mind : it is honorable and 



FIFTY YEARS. 387 

respectable to succeed — dishonorable and disreputable to fail; it 
is only folly to yield a bold enterprise to nice considerations of 
moral right. If he can avoid the penalties of the civil law, success 
obviates those of the moral law. Success is the balm for every 
wrong — the passport to every honor. 

" His race may be a line of thieves, 

His acts may strike the soul with horror; 
Yet infamy no soiling leaves — 

The rogue to-day's the prince to-morrow." 

This demoralizes: the expedient for the just — that which will do, 
not that which should do, if success requires, must be resorted to. 
This idea, like the pestilence which rides the breeze, reaches every 
heart, and man's actions are governed only by the law — not by a 
high moral sense of right. Providence, it is supposed; prepares 
for all exigencies in the operations of nature. If this be true, 
it may be that the peculiarities of blood, and the consequence to 
human character, may, in the Anglo-American, be specially designed 
for his mission on this continent ; for assuredly he is the eminently 
successful man in all enterprises which are essential in subduing the 
earth, and aiding in the spreading of his race over this continent. 
Every opposition to his progress fails, and the enemies of this prog- 
ress fall before him, and success is the result of his every effort. 
That the French Creoles retain the chivalry and noble principles of 
their ancestry is certainly true; but that they have failed to preserve 
the persevering enterprise of their ancestors is equally true. 

Emigration from France, to any considerable extent, was stayed 
after the cessation of Louisiana to the United States, and the French 
settlements ceased to expand. The country along and north of Red 
River, on the Upper Mississippi and the Washita, was rapidly filled 
up with a bold, hardy American population, between whom and the 
French sparsely peopling the country about Natchitoches on the Red, 
and Monroe on the Washita River, there was little or no sympathy ; 
and the consequence was that many of those domiciled already in 
these sections left, and returned to the Lower Mississippi, or went 
back to France. 

There had been, anterior to this cession, two large grants of land 
made to the Baron de Bastrop and the Baron de Maison Rouge, 
upon the Washita and Bartholomew, including almost the entire 



388 THE MEMORIES OF 

extent of what is now two parishes. These grants were made by the 
European Government upon condition of settlement within a cer- 
tain period. The Revolution in France was expelling many of her 
noblest people, and the Marquis de Breard, with many followers, 
was one of these : he came, and was the pioneer to these lands. A 
nucleus formed, and accessions were being made, but the govern- 
ment being transferred and the country becoming Americanized, 
this tide of immigration was changed from French to American, and 
the requisite number of settlers to complete the grants was not 
reached within the stipulated period, and they were, after more than 
half a century, set aside, and the lands disposed of as public lands 
by the United States Government. Had the government continued 
in the hands of France, it is more than probable that the titles to 
these tracts would never have been contested, even though the 
requisite tiumber of settlers had not been upon the lands to com- 
plete the grants at the specified period ; and it is also probable 
there would have been, in proper time, the required number. But 
this transfer of dominion was exceedingly distasteful to the French 
population. 

The antagonism of races itself is a great difficulty in the way of 
amalgamation, even though both may belong to the same great 
division of the human family; but added to this the difference of 
language, laws, habits, and religion, it would almost seem impos- 
sible. In the instance of Louisiana it has, so far, proved impossible. 
Although the French have been American subjects for more than 
sixty years, and there now remain in life very few who witnessed 
the change, and notwithstanding this population has, so far as the 
government is concerned, become thoroughly Americanized, still 
they remain to a very great extent a distinct people. Even in New 
Orleans they have the French part and the American part of the 
city, and do not, to any very great degree, extend their union by 
living among each other. Kind feelings exist between the popula- 
tions, and the prejudices which have so effectually kept them apart 
for so long a time are giving way rapidly now, since most of the 
younger portion of the Creole-French population are educated in 
the United States, and away from New Orleans ; consequently they 
speak the English language and form American associations, imbibe 
American ideas, and essay to rival American enterprise. Still there 
is a distinct dilTerence in appearance. Perhaps the difference in 



FIFTY YEARS. 389 

bearing, and in other characteristics, may be attributable to early 
education, bjt the first and most radical is surely that of blood. 

The settlements upon the Red and Washita Rivers did not aug- 
ment the French population in the country ; it has declined, but 
more signally upon the latter than the former river. There remain 
but few families there of the ancient population, and these are now 
so completely Americanized as scarcely to be distinguishable. The 
descendants of the Marquis de Breard, in one or two families, are 
there, but all who located on the Bayou Des Arc (and here was the 
principal settlement), with perhaps one family only, are gone, and 
the stranger is in their homes. 

The French character seems to want that fixity of purpose, that 
self-denial, and steady perseverance, which is so necessary to those 
who would colonize and subdue a new and inhospitable country. 
The elevated civilization of the French has long accustomed them 
to the refinements and luxuries of life ; it has entered into and be- 
come a part of their natures, and they cannot do violence to this in 
a sufficient degree to encounter the wilderness and all its privations, 
or to create from this wilderness those luxuries, and be content in 
their enjoyment for all the hardships endured in procuring them : 
they shrink away from these, and prefer the inconveniences and 
privations of a crowded community with its enjoyments, even in 
poverty, to the rough and trying troubles which surround and dis- 
tress the pioneer, who pierces the forest and makes him a home, 
which, at least, promises all the comforts of wealth and independence 
to his posterity. He rather prefers to take care that he enjoys as 
he desires the present, and leaves posterity to do as they prefer. 
Yet there are many instances of great daring and high enterprise in 
the French Creole : these are the exceptions, not the rule. 
33* 



390 THE MEMORIESOF 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

ABOLITION OF LICENSED GAMBLING. 

Baton Rouge — Florida Parishes — Dissatisfaction — Where there 's a 
Will, there 's a Way — Storming a Fort on Horseback — Annexation 
AT THE Point of the Poker — Raphignac and Larry Moore — Fight- 
ing THE "Tiger" — Carrying a Practical Joke too far — A Silver 
Tea-Set. 

THAT portion of Louisiana known as the Florida parishes, and 
consisting of the parishes east of the Mississippi, was part of 
West Florida, and was almost entirely settled by Americans when a 
Spanish province. Baton Rouge, which takes its name from the flag- 
staff which stood in the Spanish fort, and which was painted red, 
{balon meaning stick, and rouge, red, to Anglicize the name would 
make it red stick,) was the seat of power for that part or portion of 
the province. Here was a small Spanish garrison : on the opposite 
bank was Louisiana ; New Orleans was the natural market and out- 
let for the productions of these Florida settlements. 

When the cession of Louisiana to the United States occurred, these 
American settlers, desirous of returning to American rule, were rest- 
less, and united in their dissatisfaction with Spanish control. They 
could devise no plan by which this could be effected. Their people 
reached back from the river, along the thirty-first degree of north 
latitude, far into the interior, and extended thence to the lake border. 
On three sides they were encompassed by an American population 
and an American government. They had carried with them into 
this country all their American habits, and all their love for Amer- 
ican laws and American freedom ; to the east they were separated 
by an immense stretch of barren pine-woods from any other settle- 
ments upon Spanish soil. Pensacola was the seat of governmental 
authority, and this was too far away to extend the feeble arm of 
Spanish rule over these people. They were pretty much without 
legal government, save such laws and rule as had been by common 
consent established. These were all American in character, and, to 
all intents, this was an American settlement, almost in the midst of 
an American government, and yet without the protection of that 



FIFTY YEARS. 391 

or any other government. It was evident that at no distant day the 
Floridas must fall into the hands of the American Government. But 
there was to these people an immediate necessity for their doing so at 
once. They could not wait. But, what could they do? Among these 
people were many adventurous and determined men : they had 
mostly emigrated from the West — Tennessee, Kentucky, Western 
Pennsylvania, and Virginia ; and some were the descendants of those 
who had gone to the country from the South, in 1777 and '8, to 
avoid the consequences of the Revolutionary War. This class of 
men met in council, and secretly determined to revolutionize the 
country, take possession of the Spanish fort, and ask American 
protection. 

They desired to be attached to Louisiana as a part of that State. 
This, however, they could not effect without the consent of the State ; 
and to ask this consent was deemed useless, until they were first recog- 
nized as part of the United States. In this dilemma, a veteran of 
the Revolution, and an early pioneer to Kentucky, and thence to 
West Florida, said : " 'Wherever there is a will, there is a way:' we 
must first get rid of the Spanish authority, and look out for what 
may follow." 

They secretly assembled a small force, and, upon a concerted day, 
met in secret, and under the cover of night approached the vicinity 
of the fort. Here they \z.y perdu, and entirely unsuspected by the 
Spanish Governor Gayoso. As day was approaching, they moved 
forward on horseback, and entered the open gate of the fort, and 
demanded its immediate surrender. The only opposition made to the 
assault was by young Gayoso, the governor's son, who was instantly 
slain, when the fort surrendered unconditionally. Perhaps this is 
the only instance in the history of wars that a fort was ever stormed 
on horseback. Thomas, Morgan, Moore, Johnson, and Kemper 
were the leaders in this enterprise. They were completely successful, 
and the Spanish authorities were without the means to subdue them 
to their duty as Spanish subjects. 

The next step in their action was now to be decided. If the Gov- 
ernment of the United States attempted their protection, it would be 
cause for war with Spain ; and it was deemed best to organize under 
the laws of Louisiana, and ask annexation to that State. This was 
done. Members of the Legislature were elected in obedience to the 
laws of this State, and appeared at the meeting of that body, and 



392 THE MEMORIES OF 

asked to be admitted as members representing the late Florida par- 
ishes, then, as they assumed, a part and portion of the State. 

When asked by what authority they claimed to be a part of the 
State, they answered, succinctly : "We have thrown oft" the Spanish 
yoke, and, as free and independent Americans, have annexed our- 
selves and the parishes we represent to this State, and claim as our 
right representation in this Legislature : we have joined ourselves to 
you, because it is our interest to do so, and yours, too; and we mean 
to be accepted. ' ' At the head of this representation was Thomas . who 
was the commander of the party capturing the fort; associated with 
him was Larry Moore. Thomas came from the river parishes ; Moore 
from those contiguous to the lakes ; both were Kentuckians, both 
illiterate, and both determined men. They did not speak as suppli- 
ants for favors, but as men demanding a right. They knew nothing 
of national law, and, indeed, very little of any other law ; but were 
men of strong common sense, and clearly understood what was the 
interest of their people and their own, and, if determination could 
accomplish it, they meant to have it. 

There were in the Legislature, at the time, two men of strong minds, 
well cultivated — Blanc and Raphignac ; they represented the city, 
wer6 Frenchmen — not French Creoles, but natives of la belle France. 
They led the opposition to the admission of the Florida parishes as 
part of the State, and their representatives as members of the Legis- 
lature. They were acquainted with national law, and appreciated the 
comity of nations, and were indisposed to such rash and informal 
mea.sures as were proposed by Thomas and Moore. The portion of 
the State bordering upon this Spanish territory, and especially that 
part on the Mississippi, were anxious for the admission and union ; 
they were unwilling that Spain should participate in the control and 
navigation of any part of the river ; and, being peaceable and law- 
abiding, they wanted such close neighbors subject to the same 
government and laws. The influence of Blanc and Raphignac was 
likely to carry the majority and reject the application of the Flo- 
ridans. 

The pertinacious opposition of these men inflamed to anger Moore 
and Thomas. The matter, to them, was life or death. By some means 
they must get under the American flag, and they saw the only preven- 
tive in these two men. Moore (for it was a cold day when the decision 
was to be made) was seen to place the iron poker in the fire, and 



FIFTY YEARS. 393 

leave it there. Thomas was replying to Blanc in a most inflammatory 
and eloquent address ; for, though rude and unlettered, he was full of 
native eloquence, and was very fluent: if he could not clothe his 
strong thoughts in pure English, he could in words well understood 
and keenly felt. They stimulated Moore almost to frenzy. 

At that critical moment Raphignac walked to the fireplace, where 
Moore had remained sitting and listening to Thomas. Warm 
words were passing between Thomas and Blanc, when suddenly 
Moore grasped the heated poker — the end in the fire being at white 
heat — and calling to Thomas with a stentorian voice, "General 
Thomas ! you take that white-headed French scoundrel, and I'll take 
blue-nose," and, brandishing his hot poker over his head, he charged, 
as with the bayonet, pointing the poker at the stomach of Raphignac. 
" Tonnerre .'" exclaimed the frightened Frenchman, and, lifting 
both hands, he fell back against the wall. Moore still held the poker 
close to his stomach, as he called aloud, " Take the question, Gen- 
eral Thomas ! We come here to be admitted, and d — me if we 
won't be, or this goes through your bread-basket, I tell you, Mr. 
Raphy Blue-nose ! " Raphignac was a tall, thin man, with a terribly 
large bottled nose. At the end it was purple as the grape which had 
caused it. The question was put, and the proposition was carried, 
amid shouts of laughter. " Oh ! " said Raphignac, as the poker was 
withdrawn, and Moore with it, "vat a d- — ole savage is dat Larry 
Moore ! " Thus a part of West Florida became a part of Louisiana. 

From that day forward, ^lany of these men became most prominent 
citizens of the State. The son of Johnson — one of the leaders — 
became its Governor. Thomas was frequently a member of the 
Legislature, and once a member of Congress, from the Baton Rouge 
district, where he resided, and where he now sleeps in an honored 
grave. Morgan and Moore were frequently members of the Legis- 
lature. But of all the participants in this affair, Thomas was most 
conspicuous and most remarkable. He was almost entirely without 
education ; but was gifted with great good sense, a bold and honest 
soul, and a remarkable natural eloquence. His manner was always 
natural and genial — never, under any circumstances, embarrassed 
or affected ; and in whatever company he was thrown, or however 
much a stranger to the company, somehow he became the conspicu- 
ous man in a short time. The character in his face, the flash of his 
eye, the remarkable self-possession, the natural dignity of deport- 



394 THE MEMORIES OF 

ment, and his great good sense, attracted, and won upon every one. 
In all his transactions, he was the same plain, honest man — never, 
under any circumstances, deviating from truth — plain, unvarnished 
truth ; rigidly stern in morals, but eminently charitable to the short- 
comings of others. He was, from childhood, reared in a new country, 
amid rude, uncultivated people, and was a noble specimen of a 
frontier man ; without the amenities of cultivated life, or the polish 
of education, yet with all the virtues of the Christian heart, and 
these, perhaps, the more prominently, because of the absence of the 
others. It was frequently remarked by him that he did not think 
education would have been of any advantage to him. It enabled 
men, with pretty words, to hide their thoughts, and deceive their 
fellow-men with a grace and an ease he despised ; and it might have 
acted so with him, but it would have made him a worse and a more 
unhappy man. He now never did or said anything that he was 
ashamed to think of. He did not want to conceal his feelings and 
opinions, because he did not know how to do it; apd he was sure if 
he attempted it he should make a fool of himself; for lies required so 
much dressing up in pretty words to make them look like truth, that 
he should fail for want of words ; and truth was always prettiest when 
naked. In the main, the General was correct ; but there are some 
who lie with a naivete so perfect that even he would have deemed it 
truth naked and unadorned. 

Larry Moore was a different man, but quite as illiterate and bold 
as Thomas, without his abilities ; yet he was by no means devoid of 
mind. He resided upon the lake border, in the flat pine country, 
where the land is poor, and the people are ignorant and bigoted. 
Larry was far from being bigoted, save in his politics. He had been 
a Jeffersonian Democrat, he knew ; but he did not know why. He 
lived off the road, and did not take the papers. He knew Jefferson 
had bought Louisiana and her people, and, as he understood, at 
seventy-five cents a head. He did not complain of the bargain, 
though he thought, if old Tom had seen them before the bargain was 
clinched, he would have hesitated to pay so much. But, anyhow, 
he had given the country a free government and a legislature of 
her own, and he was a Jefferson man, or Democrat, or whatever you 
call his party. He had been sent to the Legislature, and volunteered 
to meet the British under General Jackson. 

From Jefferson to Jackson he transferred all his devotion ; because 



FIFTY YEARS. 395 

the one bought, and the other fought for, the country. Some part 
of the glory of the successful defence of New Orleans was his, for he 
had fought for it, side by side with Old Hickory ; and he loved him 
because he had imprisoned Louallier and Hall. The one was a 
Frenchman, the other an Englishman, and both were enemies of 
Jackson and the country. 

Now he adored General Jackson, and was a Jackson Democrat. 
He did not know the meaning of the word, but he understood that it 
was the slogan of the dominant party, and that General Jackson was 
the head of that party. He knew he was a Jackson man, and felt 
whatever Jackson did was right, and he would swear to it. He was 
courageous and independent ; feared no one nor anything ; was 
always ready to serve a friend, or fight an enemy — a fist-fight ; was 
kind to his neighbors, and always for the under dog in the fight. It 
would, after this, be supererogatory to say he was popular with such 
a people as his neighbors and constituents. Whenever he chose he 
was sent to the Senate by three parishes, or to the House by one ; 
and in the Legislature he was always conspicuous. He knew the 
people he represented, and could say or do what he pleased ; and 
for any offence he might give, was ready to settle with words, or a 
fist-fight. Physically powerful, he knew there were but few who, in 
a rough-and-tumble, could compete with him ; and when his adver- 
sary yielded, he would give him his hand to aid him from the ground, 
or to settle it amicably in words. "Any way to have peace," was 
his motto. 

There was, however, a different way of doing things in Neiv 
Orleans, where the Legislature met. Gentlemen were not willing to 
wear a black eye, or bruised face, from the hands or cudgels of ruf- 
fians. They had a short way of terminating difficulties with them. 
A stiletto or Derringer returned the blow, and the Charity Hospital 
or potter's field had a new patient or victim. These were places for 
which Larry had no special /^/zr/za;//, and in the city he was careful 
to avoid rows or personal conflicts. He knew he was protected by 
the Constitution from arrest, or responsibility for words uttered in 
debate, and this was all he knew of the Constitution ; yet he was 
afraid that for such words as might be offensive he would be likely 
to meet some one who would seek revenge in the night, and secretly. 
These responsibilities he chose to shun, by guarding his tongue by 
day, and keeping his chamber at night. Sometimes, however, in 



396 THE MEMORIES OF 

company with those whom he could trust, he would visit, at night, 
Prado's or Hicks's saloon, and play a little, just for amusement, with 
the " tiger." 

Now, in the heyday of Larry's political usefulness, gaming was a 
licensed institution in the city of New Orleans. The magnificent 
charity of the State, the Hospital for the Indigent, was sustained by 
means derived from this tax. 

It was the enlightened policy of French legislation to tax a vice 
which could not be suppressed by criminal laws. The experience of 
civilization has, or ought to have taught every people, that the vice 
of gaming is one which no law can reach so completely as to sup- 
press in toto. Then, if it will exist, disarm it as much as possible of 
the power to harm — let it be taxed, and give the exclusive privilege 
to game to those who pay the tax and keep houses for the purpose 
of gaming. These will effectually suppress it. Everywhere else they 
are entitled to the game, and will keep close watch that it runs into 
no other net. Let this tax be appropriated to the support of an 
institution where, in disease and indigence, its victims may find 
support and relief. Make it public, that all may see and know 
its habituh, and who may feel the reforming influence of public 
opinion. For, at last, this is the only power by which the morals 
of a community are preserved. Let laws punish crimes — public 
opinion reform vices. 

Larry was a lawmaker, and though he loved a little fun at times, 
even at the expense of the law, he was very solicitous as to the health 
of the public morals. In several visits at Prado's, he was successful 
in plucking some of the hair from the tiger. It was exceedingly 
pleasant to have a little pocket-change to evince his liberality socially 
with his friends, when it did not trench upon the crop, which was 
always a lean one on the sand-plains of St. Helena ; for, like the 
great Corsican, Larry had a desolate home in St. Helena. 

On one occasion, however, he went too close to the varmint, and 
returned to his little dirty apartments on the Rue Rampart minus 
all his gains, with a heavy instalment from the crop. His wonted 
spirits were gone. He moped to the State House, and he sat melan- 
choly in his seat ; he heeded not even the call of the yeas and nays 
upon important legislation. Larry was sick at heart, sick in his 
pocket, and was only seen to pluck up spirit enough to go to the 
warrant-clerk, and humbly insist upon a warrant on the treasurer for 



FIFTY YEARS. 397 

a week's pay to meet a week's board. On Monday, however, he 
came into the Senate with more buoyancy of spirit than had been his 
wont for some days ; for Larry was a senator now, and had under his 
special charge and guardianship the people and their morals of three 
extensive parishes. 

The Senate was scarcely organized and the minutes read, when it 
was plain Larry meant mischief. The hour for motions had arrived, 
and Larry was on his feet: he cleared his throat, and, throwing back 
his head, said: " Mr. President, I have a motion in my hand, which 
I will read to the Senate : 

" ^Resolved, That a joint committee, of one from the Senate, and 
two from the House, be appointed to report a bill abolishing licensed 
gaming in the city of New Orleans.' " 

Larry had declared war, for he added, as he sent his resolution to 
the clerk's desk: "At the proper time I mean to say something 
about these damnable hells." Throughout the city there was a buzz ; 
for at that time New Orleans had not the fourth of her present popu- 
lation. Any move of this sort was soon known to its very extremes. 
The trustees of the hospital, the stockholders in these licensed faro- 
banks — for they were, like all robbing-machines, joint-stock com- 
panies — and many who honestly believed this the best system to 
prevent gaming as far as possible, were seen hanging about the lobbies 
of the Legislature. Each had his argument in favor of continuing the 
license, but all were based upon the same motive — interest. The 
public morals would be greatly injured, instead of being improved; 
where there were only four gaming establishments, there would be 
fifty ; instead of being open and public, they would be hid away in 
private, dark places, to which the young and the innocent would be 
decoyed and fleeced ; merchants could not supervise the conduct of 
their clerks — these would be robbed by their employes. As the thing 
stood now, cheating operated a forfeiture of charter or license : this 
penalty removed, cheating would be universal. "What would be- 
come of the hospital?" the tax -payer asked. "God knows, our 
taxes are onerous enough now, and to add to these the eighty thou- 
sand dollars now paid by the gamblers — why, the people would not 
stand it, and this great and glorious charity would be destroyed." 

To all of these arguments Larry was deaf ; his constituents expected 
it of him ; the Christian Church demanded it. They were respon- 
sible to Heaven for this great sin. The pious prayers of the good 
34 



398 THE MEMORIES OF 

sisters of the holy Methodist Church, as well as those of the Baptist, 
had at last reached the ears of the Almighty, and he, Larry, felt 
himself the instrument in His hands to put down the r/ d infer- 
nal sons of b , who were robbing the innocent and unsuspecting. 

There was no use of urging arguments of this sort to him : if the 
Charity Hospital fell, let her fall, and if the indigent afflicted could 
not find relief elsewhere, why, they must die — they had to die any- 
how at some time, and he did n't see much use in their living, any- 
how ; and as for the taxes, he was not much concerned about that : he 
had but little to be taxed, and his constituents had less. " I, or they, 
as you see, are not very responsible on that score. By the God of 
Moses, this licensed gambling was a sin and a curse, if it did support 
seven or eight thousand people in the Charity Hosjntal every year : 
that was the reason so many died there, the curse of God was on the 
place ; for the Scripture says, the 'wages of sin is death,' and I see 
this Scripture fulfilled right here in that hospital, and the moral and 
religious portion of my constituents so feel it, and 1 am boimd to re- 
present them. And the d d gamblers were no friends of mine 

or of the Church." 

There was one, a little dark-moustached Spaniard, who was listening 
and peering at him, with eyes black and pointed as a ehincapin, and, 
murmuring softly in Spanish, turned and went away. "What did that 
d d black-muzzled whelp say?" Larry asked. "I don't under- 
stand their d d lingo." An unobtrusive individual in the back- 
ground translated it for him. He said: "He who strikes with the 
tongue, should always be ready to guard with the hands ! " " What 
in the h — does he mean by that?" asked Larry. *^Je ne sais fas f*^ 
said one whom Larry remembered to have seen in the tiger's den, and 
apjxirently familiar there, for he had been on the wrong side of the 
table. 

"I sui>pose they mean to shoot me." The Frenchman shrugged 
his shoulders most knowingly. Larry grew pale, and walked from 
the lobby to his seat. Here he knew he was safe. He laid his head 
in his palm, and rested it there for many minutes. At last, he said 
sharply: "Let them shoot, and be d d." 

The committee was announced. Larry, who was the chairman, 
and two from the House, constituted this important committee. One 
of these loved fun, and never lost an oi)portunity to have it. The 
meeting of the committee soon took place, and the chairman insisted 



FIFTY YEARS. 399 

that the first named on the part of the House shouUl draft the bill. 
This was the wag. He saw Larry was frightened, and peremptorily 
refused, declaring it was the chairman's duty. "I do not wish to 
have anything to do with this matter any way. It was a very useless 
thing, and foolish too, to be throwing a cat into a bee-gum ; for this 
was nothing else. This bill will start every devil of those little 
moustached foreigners into fury: they are all interested in these faro- 
banks. It is their only way of making a living, and they are as vin- 
dictive as the devil. Any of them can throw a Spanish knife through 
a window, across the street, and into a man's heart, seated at his 
table, or fireside ; and to-day I heard one of them say, in French, 
which he supposed I did not understand, that this bill was nothing 
but revenge for money lost ; and if revenge was so sweet, why, he 
could taste it too. Now, I have lost no money there — have never 
been in any of their dens, and he could not mean me." 

" Gentlemen, we will adjourn this meeting until to-morrow," said 
Larry, "when I will try and have a bill for your inspection." The 
morrow came, and the bill came with it, and was reported and 
referred to the committee of the whole House. On the ensuing 
morning, Larry found upon his desk, in the Senate chamber, the fol- 
lowing epistle : 

"Mr. Larry Moore: You have no shame, or I would expose you 
in the public prints. You know your only reason for offering a bill 
to repeal the law licensing gaming in this city is to be revenged on 
the house which won honorably from you a few hundred dollars, 
most of which you had, at several sittings, won from the same house. 
Now, you have been talked to ; still you persist. There is a way to 
reach you, and it shall be resorted to, if you do not desist from- the 
further prosecution of this bill." 

The hand in which this epistle was written was cramped and evi- 
dently disguised, to create the impression of earnestness and secrecy. 
It was a long time before Larry could spell through it. When he had 
made it out, he rose to a question of order and privilege, and sent 
the missive to the secretary's desk, to be read to the Senate. During 
the reading there was quite a disposition to laugh, on the part of 
many senators, who saw in it nothing but a joke. 

" What in the h — do you see in that thar document to laugh at, 
Mr. Senators? D — it, don't you see it is a threat, sirs! — a threat 



400 THE MEMORIES OF 

to 'sassinate me? I want to know, by the eternal gods, if a senator 
in this house — this here body — is to be threatened in this here 
way? You see, Mr. President, that these here gamblers (d — 'em !) 
want to rule the State. Was that what General Jackson fit the battle 
of New Orleans for, down yonder in old Chemut's field? I was 
thar, sir ; I risked my life in that great battle, and I want to tell these 
d d scoundrels that they can't scare me — no, by the Eternal ! " 

" I must call the senator to order. It is not parliamentary to swear 
in debate," said the President of the Senate. 

" I beg pardon of the chair ; but I did n't know this Senate was a 
parliament before; but I beg pardon. I didn't know I swore before ; 

but, Mr. President, I'll be d d if this ain't a figure beyant me : 

for a parcel of scoundrels — d d blacklegs, sir ! — to threaten a 

senator in this Legislature with 'sassination, for doin' the will of his 
constituents." 

" The chair would remind the senator that there is no question or 
motion before the Senate." 

" Thar ain't? Well, that 's another wrinkle. Ain't that thar hell- 
fired letter to me, sir — a senator, sir, representing three parishes, 
sir — before this House? (or maybe you '11 want me to call it a parlia- 
ment, sir?) It is, sir; and I move its adoption." 

This excited a general laugh, and, at the same time, the ire of 
Moore. 

" By G — , sir ; I don't know if it would n't benefit the State if 
these hell-fired gamblers were to 'sassinate the whole of this House or 
parliament." 

The laugh continued, and Moore left the Senate in a rage. 

The next morning found a second epistle, apparently from a dif- 
ferent source, on Moore's table. It was written in a fine, bold hand, 
and said : 

"Larry: You splurged largely over a letter found on your desk 
yesterday. I see you have carried it to the newspapers. I want you 
to understand distinctly and without equivocation, if the bill you 
reported to the Senate becomes a law, you die. Vcrbutn sapientisy 

Larry had not returned to his seat during the day ; but the next 
morning he came in, flanked by several senators, who had come with 
him from his quarters. There lay the threatening document, sealed, 
and directed to the "Honorable Larry Moore." In a moment the 



FIFTY YEARS. 4OI 

seal was broken. This he could read without much trouble. After 
casting his eyes over it, he read it aloud. 

" Now, sir, Mr. President, here is another of these d d letters, 

and this time 1 am told if this bill passes, I am to die. Maybe you 'U 
say this ain't before the Senate." 

"The chair would remind the senator that the simple reading of 
a private letter to the Senate raises no question. There must be a 
motion in relation to what disposition shall be made of the paper." 

"I know that, ^ir. Mr. President, I 'm not a greeny in legislater 
matters. I have been here before, sir; and didn't I move its adop- 
tion yesterday, sir? and wasn't I laughed out of the house, sir? and 
I expect if I was to make the same motion, I should be laughed out 

of the house again, sir. Some men are such d d fools that they 

will laugh at anything." 

" The chair must admonish the senator that oaths are not in order." 

"Well, by G — , sir, is my motion in order to-day? I want to 
know ; I want you to tell me that." 

' ' Order, Mr. Senator ! ' ' 

"Yes, sir, 'order!' Mr. President, that's the word. Order, 
sir; is my motion in order, sir?" • 

" The chair calls the senator to order." 

" Ah ! that is it, is it? Well, sir, what order shall I take? 1 ask a 
question, and the chair calls me to order. Well, sir, I 'm in only 
tolerable order, but I want my question answered — I want to know 
if I 'm to be threatened with 'sassination by the hell-fired gamblers, 
and then laughed at by senators for bringing it before the Senate, 
and insulted by you, sir, by calling me to order for demanding my 
rights, and the rights of my constituents, here, from this Senate? 

This, sir, is a d d pretty situation of affairs. If General Jackson 

was in your place, I 'd have my rights, and these d d gamblers 

would get theirs, sir : he would hang them under the second section, 
and no mistake." 

The laugh was renewed, and the President a.sked Larry if he had 
any motion to make. 

"Yes, sir," said Larry, now thoroughly aroused. "I move this 
Senate adjourn and go home, and thar stay until they lam to behave 
like gentlemen, by G — ! " and away he went in angry fury. 

For four consecutive days, this scene was enacted in the Senate. 
Kach succeeding day saw Moore more and more excited, and the 
34* 2 A 



402 THE MEMORIES OF 

Senate began to entertain the opinion that there was an intention to 
intimidate the Legislature, and thus prevent the passage of the bill. 
These daily missives grew more and more threatening, and terror 
began to usurp the place of rage with Moore. He would not leave 
the Senate chamber or his quarters without being accompanied by 
friends. In the mean time the bill came up, and Moore had made 
a characteristic speech, and the morning following there were half a 
dozen letters placed upon his table from the post- office. Their 
threats and warnings increased his alarm. Some of these purported 
to come from friends, detailing conversations of diabolical character 
which had been overheard — others told him only an opportunity 
was wanting to execute the threats previously made. 

The city became excited — a public meeting was called, strong 
indignation resolutions were passed, and highly approbatory ones 
of the course and conduct of the intrepid senator, pledging him 
countenance and support. A subscription was taken up, and a 
splendid silver tea-set was presented him, and in this blaze of excite- 
ment the bill became a law — and the city one extended gambling- 
shop. The silver set was publicly exhibited, with the name of the 
senator engraved upon it, and the cause for presenting it, and by 
whom presented. 

Moore was contemplating this beautiful gift with a group of friends: 
among them were the three individuals who had been the authors of 
all this mischief, when one of them asked Moore, " Where will you 
put this rich gift? It will show badly in your pine-pole cabin." 

*' I intend having the cabin, every log of it, painted red as light- 
ning," said Moore. " The silver shan't be disgraced." 

Originally it had been intended by those getting up the joke, when 
it had sufficiently frightened Moore, to laugh at him ; but it took too 
serious a turn, and Moore died a hero, not knowing that every letter 
was written by the same hand, and that the whole matter was a prac- 
tical joke. All, save only one, who participated in it, are in the 
grave, and only a few remain who will remember it. 

Larry Moore was a Kentuckian by birth, and had many Kentucky 
characteristics. He was boisterous but kind-hearted, boastful and 
good at a fist-fight, decently honest in most matters, but would cheat 
in a horse-trade. Early education is sometimes greatly at fault in its 
inculcations, and this was, in Moore's case, peculiarly so. Had he 
not been born in Kentucky, these jockey tricks perhaps would not 



FIFTY YEARS. 403 

have been a part of his accomplishments. For there, it is said, no 
boy is permitted to leave home on a horse enterprise until he has 
cheated his father in a horse-trade. Moore left the State so young 
that it was by some doubted whether this trait was innate or acquired ; 
but it always distinguished him, as a Kentuckian by birth at least. 

He was remarkable for the tenacity of his friendships. He would 
not desert any one. It was immaterial what was the character of the 
man, if he served Moore, Moore was his friend, and he would cling 
quite as close to one in the penitentiary as in the halls of Congress. 
It made no difference whether he wore cloth or cottonade, lived in 
a palace or pine-pole cabin, whether honest or a thief, the touchstone 
to his heart was, "He is my friend, and I am at his service." Not 
only in this, but in everything else, he strove to imitate his great 
friend and prototype. General Jackson. He lived to be an old man, 
and among his constituents he was great, and made his mark in his 
day in the State. There was some fun in Larry, but he was the cause 
of much more in others. Larry, rest in peace, and light be the sand 
that lies on your coffin ! 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THREE GREAT JUDGES. 

A Speech in two Languages — Long Sessions — Matthews, Martin, and 
Porter — A Singular Will — A Scion of '98 — Five Hundred Dol- 
lars FOR A Little Fun with the Dogs — Cancelling a Note. 

THE Legislature of Louisiana, forty years ago, sat in New 
Orleans, and was constituted of men of varied nationalities. 
It was common to see in close union, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, 
Englishmen, and Americans, with here and there a Scotchman, with 
his boat-shaped head and hard common sense. The Creole- French 
and the Americans, however, constituted the great majority of the 
body. 

When the cession to the tJnited States took place, and the colony 
soon after was made a State of the Union, the Constitution required 
all judicial and legislative proceedings to be conducted in English, 



404 THE MEiMORIES OF 

which was the legal language. But as very few of the ancient popu- 
lation could speak or read English, it was obligatory on the authori- 
ties to have everything translated into French. All legislative and 
judicial proceedings, consequently, were in two languages. This 
imposed the necessity of having a clerk or translator, who could not 
only translate from the records, but who could retain a two-hours' 
speech in either language, and, immediately upon the speaker's con- 
cluding, repeat it in the opposite language. 

This complicated method of procedure consumed much time, and 
consequently the sessions of the Legislature were protracted usually 
for three months, and sometimes four. 

This fact caused many planters, whose business called them fre- 
quently to the city during the winter, to become members of the 
Legislature. At this time, too, representation was based on taxation, 
and the suffragist was he who paid a tax to the State. The revenues 
of the State were from taxation, and these taxes were levied alone 
upon property. There were no poll taxes, and very few articles 
except land, negroes, and merchandise were taxed. The conse- 
quence was, the government was in the hands of the property- 
holders only. 

The constituency was of a better order than is usually furnished 
by universal suffrage, and the representation was of a much more 
elevated character than generally represents such a constituency. 

Party spirit, at that time, had made little progress in dividing the 
people of the State, and the gentlemen representatives met cordially, 
and constituted an undivided society. There was no division of inter- 
est between different sections of the State, and tKe general good was 
consulted by all. The Legislature was then composed of substantial 
men. The seat of government being in the city, and the sessions 
held during the winter and spring months, men of business, and 
especially professional men, might represent the city constituency, 
and yet give a good portion of their time to their usual avocations. 

Good laws were the consequence ; and the Bench being filled by 
executive appointment, with the consent of the Senate, and their 
tenure of office being for life or good behavior, insured the selection 
of proper men for judges. The Supreme Court was composed at 
that time of three judges, Matthews, M^tin, and Porter. Matthews 
was a Georgian by birth, Martin was a native of France, and Porter 
an Irishman : all of these were remarkable men, and each in his own 



FIFTY YEARS. 405 

history illustrative of what energy and application will effect for men, 
when properly applied in youth. 

Chief-Justice George Matthews was the son of that very remarkable 
man, Governor George Matthews, of the State of Georgia. He was 
born in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, and received only such educa- 
tion as at that time could be obtained in the common country schools 
of the State. He read law in early life, and was admitted to the 
Bar of his native State. His father was Governor of the State at 
the time of the passage of the celebrated Yazoo Act, alienating more 
than half of the territory of the State. 

This act was secured from the Legislature by corruption of the 
boldest and most infamous character. Governor Matthews was only 
suspected of complicity in this transaction from the fact that he 
signed the bill as governor. His general character was too pure to 
allow of suspicion attaching to him of corruption in the discharge 
of the duties of his office of governor. 

At the period of passing this act, the United States Government 
was new. The States, under their constitutions, were hardly working 
smoothly; the entire system was experimental. Theimiversal opinion 
that the people were sovereign, and that it was the duty of every 
public officer to yield obedience to the will of the majority, clearly 
expressed, operated strongly upon the Executives of the States, and 
very few, then, attempted to impose a veto upon any act of the 
Legislatures of the different States. Tradition represents Governor 
Matthews as opposed individually to the act, but he did not feel 
himself justified in interposing a veto simply upon his individual 
opinion of the policy or propriety of the measure, especially when 
he was assured in his own mind that the Legislature had not trans- 
cended their constitutional powers ; and this opinion was sustained 
as correct by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case 
of Fletcher vs. Peck. 

The great unpopularity of the transaction involved the Governor 
and his family. Men excited almost to frenzy, never stay to reflect, 
but madly go forward, and, in attempts to right great wrongs, commit 
others, perhaps quite as great as those they are seeking to remedy. 
Governor Matthews, despite his Revolutionary services and his high 
character for honesty and moral worth, never recovered from the 
effects of this frenzy which seized upon the people of the State, and 
is the only one of the early Governors of the State who has remained 



406 THE MEMORIES OF 

unhonored by the refusal of the Legislature, up to this day, to call or 
name a county for him. This unpopularity was keenly felt by the 
children of Matthews, who were men of great worth. 

William H. Crawford was at this time filling a large space in the 
public confidence of the people of Georgia, and gave to Governor 
Matthews his. confidence and friendship. It was he who persuaded 
George Matthews, the son, to emigrate to Louisiana. He frankly 
told him this unpopularity of his father would weigh heavily upon 
him through life, if he remained in Georgia. "You have talents, 
George," said he, "and, what is quite as important to success in life, 
common sense, with great energy : these may pull you through here, 
but you will be old before you will reap anything from their exercise 
in your native State. These prejudices against your father may die 
out, but not before most of those who have participated in them 
shall have passed away : truth will ultimately triumph, but it will be 
when your father is in the grave, and you gray with years. To bear 
and brave this may be heroic, but very unprofitable. I think I have 
influence enough with the President to secure an appointment in 
Louisiana — probably the judgeship of the Territory, or one of them. ' ' 

Matthews feared his qualifications for such an appointment, and so 
expressed himself to Crawford. The civil law was the law of 
Louisiana, and he was entirely una(^quainted with this. Crawford's 
reply was eminently characteristic. The great principles of all laws 
are the same. Their object is to enfore the right, and maintain im- 
partial justice between man and man. In hearing a case, a judge of 
good common sense will generally find out the justice of the matter. 
Let him decide right, and do substantial justice, and he will, ninety- 
nine times out of one hundred, decide according to law, whether he 
knows anything about the law or not. And such a judge is always 
best for a new country, or, in truth, for any country. The appoint- 
ment was secured, and George Matthews left his native State forever. 

Soon after reaching Louisiana, he married Miss Flower, of West 
Feliciana — a lady in every way suited to him. She was of fine 
family, with strong mind, domestic habits, and full of energy. 
They were very much attached to each other, and were happy and 
prosperous through all the life of the great judge. Mrs. Matthews 
still lives, and in the immediate neighborhood of her birthplace, 
and is now active, useful, and beloved by all who know her, though 
extremely old. 



FIFTY YEARS. 4O7 

When the Territory was organized into a State under the Consti- 
tution, Matthews was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court 
by Governor Chiiborne — an office he held through life, and the 
duties of which he discharged with distinguished ability, and to the 
honor of the State and the entire satisfaction of the Bar and the 
people. 

The mind of Judge Matthews was strong and methodical. His 
general character largely partook of the character of his mind._ He 
steadily pursued a fixed purpose, and was prudent, cautious, and con- 
siderate in all he did. There was no speculation in his mind. He 
jumped to no conclusions ; but examined well and profoundly every 
question — weighed well every argument ; but he never forgot the 
advice of Mr. Crawford, and sometimes would strain a point in 
order to effect strict and substantial justice. As a judge, he was 
peculiarly cautious. However intricate was any case, he bent to it 
his whole mind, and the great effort was always to learn the right — 
to sift from it all the verbiage and ambiguity which surrounded and 
obscured it, and then to sustain it in his decision. Upright and 
sincere in his pursuits, methodical, with fixity Of purpose, he was 
never in a hurry about anything, and was always content, in his busi- 
ness, with moderate profits as the reward of his labor. As a com- 
panion, he was gentle, kind, and eminently social ; but he gave little 
time to social entertainments or light amusements. In his decisions 
as a judge, he established upon a firm basis the laws, and the enlight- 
ened exposition of these, in their true spirit. A foundation was 
given to the jurisprudence of the State by this court, which entitles it 
justly to the appellation of the Supreme Court, and to the gratitude 
of the people of the State. 

The life of Judge George Matthews was one of peculiar usefulness. 
Learned and pure as a judge, moral and upright as a citizen, affec- 
tionate and gentle as a husband and father, and humane and indul- 
gent as a master, his example as a man was one to be recommended 
to every young man. Its influence upon society was prominently 
beneficial, and was an exemplification of moral honesty, perseverance, 
and success. He won a proud name as a man and as a jurist, and accu- 
mulated a large fortune, without ever trenching upon the rights of 
another. He secured the confidence and affection of every member 
of his wife's family — a very extensive one — and was the benefactor 
of most of them. He was beloved and honored by all his neighbors, 



408 THE MEMORIES OF 

through a long life. In his public duties and his private relations 
he never had an imputation cast upon his conduct, and he died with- 
out an enemy. 

Francois Xavier Martin was a native of France. In early life 
he emigrated to the United States, and fixed his residence at 
Newbern, North Carolina. He was poor, and without a trade or 
profession by which to sustain himself, or to push his fortunes in a 
strange land. He labored under another exceedingly great obstacle 
to success : though pretty well educated, he could not speak the Eng- 
lish language. But he had a proud spirit and an indomitable will. 
He sought employment as a printer, choosing this as a means of learn- 
ing the English language. Though he had never fingered a type in 
his life, he had that confidence in himself which inspired the con- 
viction that he could overcome any difficulty presenting itself between 
his will and success. 

He found the editor of the newspaper kind, and apparently indif- 
ferent ; for he asked no questions relative to his qualifications as a 
printer, but, requiring help, gave him immediate employment. He 
went to work — was very slow, but very assiduous and constant, never 
leaving his stand until he had completed his work. There was a 
compositor near him, and he watched and learned without asking 
(juestions. Owing to the little English he knew, no questions were 
asked ; but it was observed in the office that he was rapidly improv- 
ing in this, and in the facility of doing his work. The paper was a 
weekly one, consequently he had ample time for his work, and he 
improved every moment. The many mistakes he made in the begin- 
ning were attributed to his ignorance of the language, and it was not 
until he became the most expert compositor in the office that it was 
known that he had never, until he entered this office, been in a print- 
ing-office. He was so abstemious in his habits that those about the 
office wondered how he lived. He rarely left the composing-room, 
and, in his moments of rest from his work, was employed in studying 
the language, or reading some English author. A bit of cheese, a 
loaf of bread, some dried fish, and a cup of coffee constituted his bill 
of fare for every day, and these were economically used. He never 
spoke of home, of previous pursuits, or future intentions. He held 
communion with no one — his own thoughts being his only com- 
])anions — but steadily persevered in his business. No amusements 
attracted him. He was never at any place of public resort. He was 



FIFTY YEARS. 4O9 

the talk of the town, though none had seen him unless they visited 
the little, dirty, inky office in which he was employed. He never 
seemed to know he was an object of curiosity, and when — as some- 
times was the case — half a dozen persons would come expressly 
to see him, he never turned his head from his work, or seemed to be 
conscious of their presence. 

In this office his progress was very rapid, and it was not very long 
before he became the foreman in the composing-room. He con- 
tinued in that capacity until he became the owner of the entire 
establishment. 

Not content with the life of a printer, he disposed of his printing 
establishment and paper, and came to New Orleans. Before leaving 
France he had read some law, and now he applied himself closely 
to its study. In a short tirne he rose to distinction, and was in a 
lucrative practice. It was a maxim with Judge Martin never to be 
idle, and never to expend time or money uselessly. He found time 
from his professional duties. to write a history of Louisiana, which is, 
perhaps, more correct in its facts than any history ever written. 

Early deprivations, and the necessity of a most rigid economy to 
meet the exigencies of this straitened condition, created habits of 
abstinence and saving which he never gave up. On the contrary, 
like all habits long indulged, they became stronger and more obdu- 
rate as life advanced. Before his elevation to the supreme Bench, 
he had accumulated a fortune of at least one hundred thousand dol- 
lars, which he had judiciously invested in the city of New Orleans. 
The tenure of his office was for life, and his ambition never aspired 
to anything beyond ; but he devoted himself to the duties of this with 
the assiduity of one determined, not only to know, but faithfully to 
discharge them. Judge Martin was conscientious in all that he did 
as a man, and remarkably scrupulous as a judge. He was unwill- 
ing to hasten his judgments, and sometimes was accused of tardi- 
ness in rendering them. This resulted from the great care exer- 
cised in examining the merits of the case, and to make himself sure 
of the law applicable to it. 

The peculiar organization of the Supreme Court of Louisiana 
imposes immense labor upon the judges; they are not only charged 
with the duty of correcting errors of law, but the examination of all 
the facts and all the testimony introduced in the trials in the Dis- 
trict Court. In tnith. the case comes up de novo, and is reviewed as 
35 



4IO THE MEMORIES OF 

from the beginning, and a judgment made up without regard to the 
proceedings below further than to determine from the record of 
facts and law sent up, holding in all cases jurisdiction as well of 
facts as law — and in truth it is nothing more than a high court of 
chancery. 

Judge Martin was fond of labor, but did not like to do the same 
labor twice ; hence his particularity in examining well both facts 
and law, in every case submitted for his adjudication. He wished 
the law permanently established applicable to every case, and disliked 
nothing so much as being compelled to overrule any previous 
decision of the Supreme Court. His mind was eminently judicial ; 
its clear perceptions and analytical powers peculiarly fitted him for 
the position of supreme judge. But there was another trait of char- 
acter, quite as necessary to the incumbent of the Bench, for which 
he was altogether as much distinguished. He was without prejudice, 
and only knew men before his court as parties litigant. It was said 
of him, by John R. Grymes, a distinguished lawyer of New Orleans, 
that he was better fitted by nature for a judge than any man who ever 
graced the Bench. " He was all head, and no heart." 

This was severely said, and to some extent it was true, for Judge 
Martin appeared without sympathy for the world, or any of the 
world. He had no social habits; he lived in seclusion with his ser- 
vant Ben, a venerable negro, who served him for all purposes. These 
two had been so long and so intimately associated, that in habits and 
want of feeling they seemed identical. Ben served him because he 
was his master and could compel it. He tolerated Ben because he 
could not well do without him. He kept an interest account with 
Ben. He had paid for him six hundred dollars, when first pur- 
chased. Ten per cent, upon this amount was sixty dollars. His 
insurance upon a life policy, which risk he took himself, was one 
hundred dollars. His services were regularly valued by what such a 
man would hire for. Ben accompanied him on the circuit, and died 
at Alexandria. When this was told him, he immediately referred to 
this account, and declared he had saved money by buying Ben, but 
should be loser if he paid his funeral expenses, which he declined 
to do. Judge Martin was very near-sighted, and it was amusing to 
see him with his little basket doing his marketing, examining scru- 
pulously every article, cheapening everything, and finally takmg the 
refuse of meats and vegetables, rarely expending more than thirty 



FIFTY YEARS. 4II 

cents for the day's provisions. His penurious habits seemed natural: 
they had characterized him from the moment he came to the United 
States, and were then so complete as not to be intensified by age 
and experience. For many years, he had no relative in this country, 
and he created no relations, outside of his business, with the com- 
munity in which he lived. His antisocial nature and his miserable 
manner of living kept every one from him. Secluded, and studious 
in his habits, he never seemed solitary, for his books and papers 
occupied his entire time. His thirst for knowledge was coequal with 
his thirst for money — and why, no one could tell. He never made 
a display of the one, or any use of the other but to beget money. 
There seemed an innate love for both, and an equal disposition to 
husband both. He seemed to have no ulterior view in hoarding — 
he endowed no charity, nor sought the world's praise in the grave, 
by building a church or endowing a hospital. With mankind, his 
only relations were profession^. He never married, and had no 
taste for female society — was never known to attend a ball or private 
party, to unite himself with any society, or be at a public meeting — 
never indulged in a joke or frivolous conversation, and had no use 
for words unless to expound law or conclude a contract ; strictly 
punctual to every engagement, but exceedingly chary in making any. 

As Judge Martin advanced in years, his habits became more and 
more secluded. He had written for a brother, who came to him 
from France. This brother was quite as peculiar as himself — they 
lived together, and he in a great degree substituted Ben, at least so 
far as society was concerned. Now he was rarely seen upon the 
street, or mingling with any, save an occasional visit to some mem- 
ber of the Bar, who, like himself, had grown old in the harness of 
the law. During the early period of the State Government- he 
reported the decisions of the Supreme Court : these reports are 
models, and of high authority in the courts of Louisiana, 

Judge Martin's mind was one of peculiar lucidity and extraordi- 
nary vigor; its capacity to acquire, analyze, and apply was quite 
equal to that of the great Marshall ; its power of condensation was 
superior to either of his compeers, while its capacity for application 
was never surpassed. It had been trained to close and continuous 
thought, and so long had this habit been indulged that it had be- 
come nature with him. His phlegmatic temperament relieved him 
from anything like impulsiveness in thought or action; all work with 



412 THE MEMORIES OF 

him was considerately approached and assiduously performed. His 
habits were temperate to austerity, and his mode of life penuriously 
mean ; but, as said of another judge, this may have been the result 
of habit growing from extreme necessity — though the same charac- 
teristics were conspicuous in his brother : like the Judge, he was 
unmarried, and, though but little younger, was always spoken to and 
spoken of as his boy-brother. Like his confrere, he remained upon 
the Bench until he died, which was in extreme old age. 

It has been asserted by some that Judge Martin soiled his repu- 
tation in his will. It was a very simple and brief will, giving all he 
possessed to his brother, and was autographic — that is, written in 
his own hand, and signed, dated, and sealed up, and upon the back 
of the document written, "This is my autographic will," and this 
signed with his own proper hand. Such a will is almost impervious 
to attack under the laws of Louisiana. 

The law of Louisiana levies a tax of ten per cent, upon all 
estates or legacies made to leave the State for foreign countries. 
The brother of Judge Martin, as soon as his will was administered 
and the proceeds of his estate were in hand, left the United States for 
France, carrying with him three hundred thousand dollars, the entire 
amount of which the Judge died possessed ; and it was subsequently 
ascertained that he had left written instructions with his brother to 
dispose among his European relatives this sum in obedience to this 
secret letter of instructions. This was considered as his will proper ; 
and it was contended that the transaction was a fraud, to deprive the 
State of the legal percentage upon the amount going out of the 
country. An attempt was made to recover this amount from his 
executor, but failed ; and the attorney for the State was rebuked by 
the Supreme Court for attempting an imputation dishonorable to the 
character of the deceased Judge — a legacy bequeathed to the State, 
in the distinguished services rendered to her by him and through so 
many years of his life. The facts are as stated. It is true, the will 
was a clear bequest of all his estate to his brother, a resident of the 
State, and the memorandum a mere request, and this might have 
been destroyed or disobeyed with impunity. The will alone was the 
authoritative disposition of his estate; the brother claimed under this, 
and the property once in his possession, it was his to dispose of at 
pleasure. 

The death of Judge Martin was regretted by every one as a serious 



FIFTY YEARS. 413 

loss to the State, though he had attained very nearly to the age of 
fourscore. He had failed, from the entire want of social and sym- 
pathetic attributes in the composition of his nature, to fasten himself 
upon the affections of any one, though he commanded the respect 
of all for'the high qualities of his intellect, his public services, and 
the consistent honesty of his life. He was followed to the grave by 
the entire Bench and Bar, and most of the distinguished people of 
his adopted city. But I doubt if a tear was shed at his funeral. He 
was without the ties in life which, sundered by death, wring tears 
and grief from the living who loved and who have lost the endeared 
one. All that the head could give, he had — the heart denied him 
all: in life he had given it to no one, and his death had touched no 
heart ; and no tear embalmed his bier, no flower planted by affec- 
tion's hand blooms about his grave. Still he has left an imperishable 
monument to his fame in his judicial career. 

Alexander Porter, the junior by many years of Matthews and 
Martin, his associates on the Bench, was an Irishman by birth, 
and came in very early life to the United States. He was the son 
of an Irish Presbyterian minister of remarkable abilities and great 
learning. As a chemist, he was only inferior to Sir Humphrey 
Davy, of his day. During the troubles of 1798, (since known 
as the rebellion of '98,) he was travelling and delivering lec- 
tures upon chemistry through Ireland. He fell under suspicion as 
being an emissary of the Society of United Irishmen, who was 
covering, under the character of a scientific lecturer, his real mission 
to stir up and unite the Irish people in aid of the views of those who 
were organizing the rebellion. To be suspected was to be ar- 
rested, and to be arrested was wellnigh equivalent to being exe- 
cuted — sometimes with the mockery of a trial, and, where evidence 
was wanting to fix suspicion, even by drum-head court-martial. This 
latter was the fate of the accomplished and learned Porter. The 
wrath of the Government visited his family. The brother of the 
sufferer collected his own and the children of his murdered brother, 
consisting of two sons and several daughters, and emigrated to Ame- 
rica. A number of emigrants from their immediate neighborhood 
had selected Nashville, Tennessee, as a home in the New World, 
and thither he came. 

The education of Alexander, the eldest of the sons, had progressed 
considerably in Ireland, and was continued for some years at Nash- 
35* 



414 THE MEMORIES OF 

ville. Being poor, he was compelled to employ some of his time in 
pursuits foreign to study, in order to supply him with the means of 
pursuing the latter. This education was irregular, but was the 
foundation of that which in maturer life was most complete. He 
studied law when quite young, intending at first to remain at Nash- 
ville. I'he competition at the Bar in that place was formidable, 
and he could not hope to succeed as his ambition prompted, without 
patient application for years. Louisiana had just been ceded to the 
United States, Mississippi was filling with population : both these 
Territories would soon be States. Already they were inviting fields 
for enterprise and talent, and soon to be more so. Pondering these 
facts in his ardent mind, and riding alone on one occasion to a jus- 
tice's court in the country to attend to some trifling matter, he chanced 
to overtake General Jackson. He had been frequently importuned 
by Jackson to remove to Louisiana. Jackson was, to some extent, 
familiar with the country, had frequently visited it, and at that time 
was interested in a retail store at Bruensburg, a place situated at the 
mouth of the Bayou Pierre, immediately on the bank of the Missis- 
sippi River. Mentioning his wish to emigrate to some point or place 
where he might expect more speedy success in his profession, Jack- 
son, with his accustomed ardor and emphasis, advised him to go to 
one of these new Territories, and in such colors did he paint their 
advantages and the certain and immediate success of any young man 
of abilities and industry, that Porter's imagination was fired, and he 
immediately determined to go at once to one of these El Dorados — 
there to fix his home and commence the strife with fortune, to coax 
or command her approving smiles. Returning to Nashville, he com- 
municated his intentions to his uncle; they met his approval, and in 
a short time he was ready to leave in search of a new home. 

He was about to leave every friend, to find his home in the midst 
of strangers, without even an acquaintance to welcome and encour- 
age him. But he was young, vigorous, and hopeful ; alive, too, 
to all he had to encounter, and determined to conquer it. Still, to 
one of his natural warmth of feeling, the parting from all he had 
ever known, and all on earth he loved, wrung his heart, and he 
lingered, dreading the parting that was to come. His kind and 
devoted uncle, his brothers he loved so tenderly, his sisters, and 
the friends he had made, all were to be left — and perhaps forever. 
There were then no steamers to navigate the waters of the West. He 



FIFTY YEARS. 415 

might float away, and rapidly, to his new home ; but to return through 
the wilderness, filled with savages and beset with dangers, was a 
long and hazardous journey, and would require, not only time, but 
means, neither of which were at his command. 

He met General Jackson again. " What ! " said he, " Alick, not 
gone yet? This won't do. When you determine, act quickly; some- 
body may get in before you. And remember, Alick, you are going 
to a new country — and a country, too, where men fight. You will 
find a different people from those you have grown among, and you 
must study their natures, and accommodate yourself to them. If 
you go to Louisiana, you will find nearly all the people French ; 
they are high-minded, and fight at the drop of a hat; and now let 
me tell you, it is always best to avoid a fight; but sometimes it can't 
be done, and then a man must stand up to it like a man. But let 
me tell you, Alick, there are not half the men who want to fight that 
pretend to; you can tell this by their blustering. Now, when you 
find one of these, and they are mighty common, just stand right up 
to him, and always appear to get madder than he does — look him 
right in the eye all the time ; but remember to keep cool, for some- 
times a blusterer will fight ; so keep cool, and be ready for anything. 
But, Alick, the best way of all is to fight the first man that offers, 
and do it in such a way as to let everybody know you will fight, and 
you will not be much bothered after that. Now, Alick, you will 
hear a great deal of preaching against fighting — well, that is all 
right ; but I tell you the best preacher among them all loves a man 
who will fight, a thousand times more than he does a coward who 
won't. All the world respects a brave man, because all the better 
qualities of human nature accompany courage. A brave man is an 
honest man ; he is a good husband, a good neighbor, and a true 
friend. You never saw a true woman who did not love a brave man. 
And now do you be off at once, look for a good place, and when 
you stop, stop to stay ; and let all you say and all you do look to 
your advantage in the future." 

Long years after this parting scene, and when Porter had become 
a national man, he used to love to recount this conversation to his 
friends, and the impression it created upon his mind of the wonder- 
ful man who had so freely advised him. 

When Porter came, he explored the entire country, and selected 
for his home Opeloasas, the seat of justice for the parish of St. 



4l6 THE MEMORIES OF 

Landry. To reach this point from New Orleans, at that time, 
required no ordinary exertion. He came first to Donaldsonville, 
where he hired a man to bring him in a small skiif to the court- 
house of the parish of Assumption. There he employed an- 
other to transport him through the Verret Canal to the lake-;, and 
on through these to Marie Jose's landing, in Attakapas ; then another 
was engaged to take him up the Teche to St. Martinsville, and from 
there he went by land to Opelousas. This route is nearly three hun- 
dred miles. 

The banks of the Teche he found densely populated with a people 
altogether different in appearance, and speaking a language scarcely 
one word of which he understood, and in everything different from 
anything he had ever before seen : added to this, he found them 
distrustful, inhospitable, and hating the Americans, to whose domin- 
ion they had been so recently transferred. 

He used to relate an anecdote of this trip, in his most humorous 
manner. " I had," he said, ''been all day cramped up in the stern 
of a small skiff, in the broiling sun, with nothing to drink but the 
tepid water of the Teche. I was weary and half sick, when I came to 
the front of a residence, which wore more the appearance of com- 
fort and respectability than any I had passed during the day. It was 
on Sunday, and there were a number of decently dressed people, 
young and old, upon the gallery or piazza, and there were great 
numbers of cattle grazing out on the prairie. Here, I thought, I 
may find some cool water, and perhaps something to mix with it. I 
landed, and went to the front gate, and called. This was quite near 
the house, and I thought some one said, 'Come in.' I opened the 
gate, and started for the house. At this juncture, a tall, dark man, 
wearing a very angry look, came from the interior of the house, and 
stopping at the gallery door, looked scowlingly down upon me as I 
approached the steps. ^ Arrctez / ' he said, waving his hand. This 
wave I understood, but not the word, and stopped. He spoke to 
me in French : I did not understand. I asked for water : this he did 
not understand, as it was pronounced with considerable of the brogue. 
Turning abruptly round, he called aloud, ^Pierre!' and a negro 
man came out, who was directed to ask me what I wanted. I told 
him, water: this he translated for his master. He spoke again angrily 
to the negro, who told me there was water in the bayou. ' Then, can 
J get a little butter-milk ? ' I asked. As soon as this was translated 



FIFTY YEARS. 4I7 

to him, he flew into a violent rage, and commenced gesticulating 
passionately. ' You better run, sir,' said the negro, * he call de dogs 
for bite you.' I heard the yelp in the back yard, and started for the 
gate with a will : it was time, for in a moment there were a dozen 
lean and vicious curs at my heels, squalling and snapping with angry 
determination. I fortunately reached the gate in time to close it 
behind me and shut off my pursuers, amid the laughter and gibes of 
those in the gallery. I took my boat, and a few miles above found 
a more hospitable man, who gave me my dinner, plenty of milk, and 
a most excellent glass of brandy. I inquired the name of the brute, 
and recorded it in my memory for future use. Ten years after that, 
he came into my office, and told me he wished to have my services 
as a lawyer. He had quarrelled with his wife, and they had sepa- 
rated. She was suing him for a separation, and property, dotal and 
paraphernal. If she recovered, and there were strong reasons for 
supposing she would, he was ruined. 
" ' Why do you come to me ? ' I asked. 

"'Ah! Advocat Porter, my friend tell me you de best lawyer, 
and in my trouble I want de best.' He stated his case, and I told 
him I would undertake it for a thousand dollars. 

" ' Mon dieu ! ' he exclaimed, with a desponding shrug, ' it is not 
possible to me for pay so much.' 

" ' Then you must employ some one else.' 

"'But dere is none else dat be so good like you. Monsieur 
Brent is for rny wife — Got damn! — an' you is de best now, so 
my friend tell me.' 

" 'Very well, then, if you want my services, you must pay for 
them ; and you had better come to terms at once, for here is a note 
which I have just received from Mr. Brent, telling me he wishes to 
see me, and I expect it is to engage me to assist him in this very 
case.' 

" ' (? mon dieu! mon dieu!'' he exclaimed, in agony. 'Veil, I 
shall give you one thousand dollar.' 

" I immediately wrote a note for the amount, payable when the 
suit was determined ; but it was with great difficulty I could induce 
him to sign it. At length he did, however, and I gained his case for 
him. He came punctually to pay his note. When I had the money 
in hand, I told him I had charged him five hundred dollars for 
attending to his case, and five hundred for setting his dogs on me. 
2 15 



41 8 THE MEMORIES OF 

" 'I been tink dat all de time,' he said, as he left the office." 
There were then several men of eminence at the Bar in the Ope- 
lousas and Attakapas country — Brent, Baker, Bowen, and Bronson, 
The superior abilities of Porter soon began to be acknowledged. 
His practice increased rapidly, and when a convention was called to 
form a constitution for the State of Louisiana, Porter was elected 
from Opelousas as a delegate. Still very young, and scarcely known 
in the city or along the coast parishes, he came unheralded by any 
extraordinary reputation for abilities. Very soon, however, he was 
taking the lead amid the best talent in the State. 

In every feature of this Constitution the mind of Porter is apparent ; 
and to-day, to one who has witnessed the forming and passing away 
of many constitutions, and their effect upon public morals and the 
general interests of the country, it appears the best that was ever 
given to a State in this Union. To those who were most active in 
the formation of this Constitution, and who had most at heart the 
protection of every interest in the State, the judicial system was most 
interesting. The preserving of the civil law as the law of the land, 
and which was guaranteed by the treaty of cession, and at the same 
time to engraft American ideas upon that system, was a delicate and 
difficult matter. The French and the French Creoles were desirous 
of retaining as much of French law and French ideas as possible. 
To these they had always been accustomed : they thought them best, 
and were very loath to permit innovations. A written constitution 
was to these people entirely a new thing. Accustomed to almost 
absolute power in the hands of their Governors, with his council — 
these being appointed by the Crown, to which they owed allegiance 
— they could hardly comprehend a constitutional representative 
form of government, and, naturally distrustful of the Americans, 
they feared every move on their part. Porter was an Irishman, and 
they distrusted him and Henry Johnson less than any others of the 
convention .speaking the English language. Where a difference of 
opinion seemed irreconcilable between the two interests. Porter was 
generally the referee, and he was always successful in reconciling 
these disputes, and bringing both parties to the support of his own 
yiews, which were those generally between the two extremes. In 
this way he succeeded in having a constitution framed as he wished 
it, upon the organization of the State Government. Under this Con- 
stitution, with Matthews and Martin, he was placed upon the Bench 



FI FTY YEARS. 419 

of the Supreme Court. Here he remained for many years ; but his 
ambition sought distinction in the councils of the nation, and he 
resigned his scat to become a candidate for the Senate of the United 
States. 

He had, years before, married the sister of Isaac L. Baker, of the 
Attakapas country, by whom he had two daughters. One of then\ 
had died in early life ; the other — a most lovely woman — was under 
the care of his maiden sister, who resided with him, and had charge 
of his household until her death. Subsequently to the death of this 
lady, this only child was married to Mr. Alston, of South Carolina, 
but survived her marriage only a short time, dying childless. 

He was successful in his canvass for the Senate, and in that body 
he soon became prominent as an orator of great powers, and as a 
most active business man. It was here the long-existing acquaintance 
with Mr. Clay ripened into deep friendship. Porter had always been 
the supporter of the views of Mr. Clay, and during his six years' ser- 
vice in the Senate, he gave a hearty and efficient support to the 
measures representing the policy of that great statesman. 

After the expiration of his senatorial term he retired with an 
exhausted constitution to his elegant home in the parish of St. Mary, 
where he devoted himself to his planting interest, now very large. 
After the death of his daughter, his health declined rapidly; yet, not- 
withstanding his debilitated condition, he was chosen by a Demo- 
cratic Legislature, a second time, as senator to the United States 
Congress ; but he never took his seat. Just before the meeting of 
Congress, he visited Philadelphia for the purpose of obtaining medi- 
cal advice. Dr. Chapman made a thorough examination of his case, 
which he pronounced ossification of the arteries of the heart, and 
which was rapidly progressing. He advised the Judge to return 
immediately home, and not to think of taking his seat in the Senate, 
as he was liable to die at any moment, and certainly must die in a 
very short time. He left immediately for his home. 

Some years before thjs, Mr. Clay found himself so embarrassed 
that it was necessary for him to apply to his friends for aid. Judge 
Porter came forward and loaned him a large sum, for which he held 
his note. Upon reaching Maysville, in descending the Ohio, on his 
return from Philadelphia, Porter debarked, and went, by stage, to 
Lexington, where he visited Mr. Clay, and spent one night with him. 
Finding his disease increasing, and fearing, unless he hurried, that he 



420 THE MEMORIES OF 

might never reach home, he declined a longer visit. When in the 
carriage, (so it was stated at the time, but I do not vouch for the 
fact,) he took the hand of Mr. Clay, and, pressing it tenderly, said, 
" Farewell until eternity ! " and bade the boy drive on. Mr. Clay 
found his note left in his hand, marked across the face, " Paid." 

On reaching home, his health seemed for a short time to rally ; 
but he began again to sink. Finding it impossible to lie down to 
sleep, he anticipated speedy dissolution. As a politician, he had 
been greatly harassed by a dissolute press, and, as a lawyer and 
prominent man, he had made some enemies. Among these was 
Thomas H. Lewis, a distinguished lawyer of Opelousas, who, of all 
his enemies, he hated most, and he was an honest hater. A clergy- 
man was spending some time with him, and apprehending that he 
might pass suddenly away, remained, in company with Mr. James 
Porter, his brother, almost constantly with him. Only a day or two 
anterior to his death, after some conversation upon the subject of the 
great change, leaning back in his reclining easy-chair, he seemed to 
forget the presence of these two, and, after remaining for more than 
an hour entirely silent, without moving or opening his eyes, he com- 
menced to speak, as if communing with himself. " I have," he said, 
" retrospected all my life, and am satisfied. Many things I have 
done I should not ; but they were never from a bad motive. I have 
accomplished more than my merits were entitled to. To the incon- 
siderate generosity of the people of Louisiana I owe much of the 
success of my life. I have filled the highest offices in their gift, the 
duties of which I have faithfully discharged to the best of my abilities, 
and, I believe, to the satisfaction of the people of the State. I have 
differed with many of my fellow-citizens, and some of them are my 
enemies ; but from my heart I have forgiven them all, as I hope to 
be forgiven by them, and by my God, before Avhom I must in a few 
hours appear." He paused many minutes, and then emphatically 
added: "Yes, Lord, even Tom Lewis." 

The opinions of Judge Porter in the reports of the decisions of 
the Supreme Court are magnificent specimens of learning, logic, and 
eloquence. Of every question he took a bold and comprehensive 
view, and the perspicuity of his style and the clearness of his ideas 
made all he wrote comprehensible to the commonest capacity. In 
his decisions he was merciless toward a suitor where he discovered 
fraud, or the more guilty crime of perjury. His wit was like the 



FIFTY YEARS. 42 1 

sword of Saladin : its brilliancy was eclipsed by the keenness of the 
edge. In debate he was brilliant and convincing ; in argument, 
cogent and lucid ; in declamation, fervid and impassioned, abound- 
ing in metaphor, and often elucidating a position with an apposite 
anecdote, both pointed and amusing. His memory was wonderful, 
and his reading extensive and diversified. He had so improved the 
defective education of his youth as to be not only classical, but 
learned. Impulsive and impetuous, he was sometimes severe and 
arrogant toward his inferiors who presumed too much upon his for- 
bearance. In his feelings and social associations he was aristocratic 
and select. He could not tolerate presumptuous ignorance ; but to the 
modest and unobtrusive he was respectful and tolerant. For the whin- 
ing hypocrisy of pretended piety he had the loftiest contempt, while 
he gave not only his confidence, but his most sincere respect, to him 
whose conduct squared with his religious professions. He was a Prot- 
estant in religion, as his father had been ; but was superior to bigotry 
or the intolerance of little minds and lesser souls. Like all men of 
exalted genius, he was erratic at times, and uncertain in his temper. 
He died without pain, bequeathing his large estate to his brother, 
with legacies to his sister in Ireland, and to some friends there. To 
Mr. Clay he left his great diamond ring. He had, at his death, 
attained only to the age of fifty-seven years. Like Judge Martin, his 
besetting sin was love of money ; but he was not a miser. To his 
slaves he was remarkably kind and indulgent, never permitting them 
to be persecuted by any one, and always treating them with paternal 
kindness — attentive to their comfort, furnishing them with good 
houses, beds, and an abundance of food and clothing — indeed, with 
everything which could contribute to their comfort or happiness. 
His hospitality was not surpassed by any gentleman in all the land." 
All who have visited at Woo^^Jawn, the beautiful and beautifully ;^ > if^Wty 
improved residence of Judge Porter, will remember the warm Irish 
welcome and luxurious hospitality of its accomplished and talented 
master. 

Thus have I attempted a slight sketch of the characters, minds, 
peculiarities, and services of these eminent men and jurists, who 
reduced to order and form the jurisprudence of Louisiana. It was the 
eminent abilities and extensive legal learning for which they were so 
eminently distinguished, as well as the stern integrity of each one of 
them, which prompted the executive of the State to select them for this 
36 



42 2 THE MEMORIES OF 

delicate and onerous position. At this time, there were not three 
other men in the State combining so fully all these traits. Their long 
continuance in office systematized the law and the proceedings in the 
courts, making order out of chaos, and building up a jurispnidence not 
inferior to that of any country. Under the peculiar circumstances, 
this was no very easy or enviable task. The country was now Ameri- 
can, and it was important that the judicial system should approximate 
as nearly as possible to the American system, and, at the same time, 
preserve the civil law as the law of the land. This law is a most beau- 
tiful system of equity, and is disrobed of many of the difficulties which 
surround the common law, and which oblige in every common-law 
country a separate and distinct system of equity. 

The criminal code was that of the common law. It was so rad- 
ically different from that which had heretofore prevailed in the 
country, that it was absolutely necessary, in order to secure to the 
accused the trial by jury, that this change should be made. 

Owing to the extended commerce of New Orleans, many cases 
arose of contracts made in the common-law States, and this must con- 
trol these cases. To reconcile and blend the two systems became, 
in many of these, a necessity. To do this required a knowledge of 
both on the part of the judges, and this knowledge, in order that no 
error might misdirect, should be thorough. It was happily accom- 
plished, and now the system is clear and fixed, and will remain a 
monument to the learning and genius of this court. 

Of the three judges, Matthews alone left descendants, and he but 
two — a son, who soon followed him to the grave, and a daughter, 
who is still living, the accomplished lady of Major Chase, formerly 
of the engineer corps of the army of the United States. 



FIFTY YEARS. 423 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

AMERICANIZING LOUISIANA. 

Powers of Louisiana Courts — Governor William C. C. Claiborne — CRUfx 
OReu.ly — Lefrenier and Noyan Executed — A Dutch Justice — 
Edward Livingston — A Caricature of General Jackson — Stephen 
Maz£reau — A Speech in Three Languages — John R. Grvmes — Set- 
tling A Ca. Sa. — Battlre Property — A Hundred Thousand Dollar 
Fee. 

THE Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana differs in this 
from that of the other States : it has jurisdiction as well of the 
facts as of the law. 

In the trial of all cases in the district or lower courts, the testimony 
is made a part of the record, and goes up to the Supreme Court for 
supervision, as well as for the enlightenment of the court, which 
passes upon the facts as well as the law ; thus making the judges 
in the lower courts merely masters in chancery, with the exception, 
that where the decision of the judge is considered correct, it is 
approved and made the judgment of the Supreme Court, 

This court, by reason of its very extraordinary powers, becomes of 
the highest importance to every citizen, and is really by far the most 
important, as it is the most responsible branch of the Government. 

The executive can only execute the law ; the legislative acts are 
revisable and amendable, so often as the Legislature holds its ses- 
sions; but the judicial decisions of the Supreme Court become the 
permanent law of the land. True, these decisions may be revised 
and overruled, but this is not likely to be done by those judges who 
have made them, and the tenure of office is such as practically to make 
them permanent. 

Under the first Constitution of the State, these judges were nomi- 
nated by the executive, and confirmed by the Senate. This Senate 
consisted of seventeen members, chosen by the people from senatorial 
districts containing a large area of territory and a numerous popu- 
lation. This concentration of responsibility insured the selection of 
men of the first abilities, attainments, and moral character. So long 
as this system obtained, the Supreme Bench was ably filled, and its 



424 THE MEMORIES OF 

duties faithfully and wisely discharged, with one exception only; but 
for the sake of those who, though not blamable, would be deeply 
wounded, I forbear further remark. 

Governor William C. C. Claiborne, who was the Territorial 
Governor, was elected by acclamation the first Governor of the State. 
He was a Virginian and a man of fine attainments. His peculiar 
temperament was well suited to the Creole population, and identifying 
himself with that population by intermarrying with one of the most 
respectable families of New Orleans, and studiously devoting himself 
to the discharge of the duties of his office, he assumed some state in 
his style of living, and when going abroad kept up something of 
the regality of his colonial predecessors. Thus suiting the taste and 
genius of the people, and in some degree comporting with what they 
had been accustomed to, at the same time assuming great affability 
of manner, both in private and in the discharge of his public duties, 
he rendered himself extremely popular with both populations. 

Governor Claiborne studiously promoted harmony between the 
people of the different races constituting the population of the State, 
and especially that of New Orleans. The State had been under the 
dominion of three separate nations. The mass of the population, 
originally French, very reluctantly yielded to Spanish domination, 
and not without an attempt at resistance. For a time this had been 
successful in expelling a hated Governor; but the famous O'Reilly, 
succeeding to the governorship of the colony, came with such a force 
as was irresistible, suppressing the armed attempt to reclaim the 
colony from Spanish rule. He made prisoners of the chiefs of the 
malecontents, with Lefrenier at their head, and condemned them to 
be shot. One of these was Noyan, the son-in-law of Lefrenier. He 
was a young man, and but recently united to the beautiful and accom- 
plished daughter of the gallant Lefrenier. His youth, his chivalry, 
and extraordinary intrepidity excited the admiration of the cold, cruel 
O'Reilly, and he was offered a pardon. He refused to accept it, un- 
less mercy should be extended to his father-in-law: this having been 
denied, he was executed, holding in his own the hand of Lefrenier, 
defiantly feeing his executioners and dying with Roman firmness. 

This bloody tragedy was transacted upon the square in front of the 
Cathedral, where now stands the colossal statue of Andrew Jackson, 
in the midst of the most lovely and beautiful shrubs and flowers 
indigenous to the soil of Louisiana. The orange, with her pale green 



FIFTY YEARS, 425 

foliage, and sweet, modest white flowers, so delicate and so delicious ; 
the oleander, the petisporum, and roses of every hue unite their foli- 
age and blend their fragrance to enchant and delight the eye and 
sense, and to contrast too the scene of carnage once deforming and 
outraging this Eden spot. 

Scarcely had the people become reconciled to Spanish domination, 
before the colony was retroceded to France, and again in no great 
while ceded to the United States. 

The French were prejudiced against the Spaniards and despised 
them, and now the Americans were flowing into the country and city, 
with manners and customs intolerable to both French and Spaniards, 
hating both and being hated by both, creating a state of society pain- 
fully unpleasant, and apparently irreconcilable. 

This state of affairs made the Governor's position anything but 
pleasant. But distressing as it was, he accomplished more in pre- 
serving harmony than one well acquainted with the facts would have 
deemed possible. 

In doing this he was skilful enough to preserve his popularity, and 
secure his election to the Gubernatorial chair upon the formation of 
the State. Indeed, so great was his popularity, that it was said some 
aspirants to Gubernatorial honors incorporated the clause in the Con- 
stitution which makes the Governor ineligible to succeed himself, 
lest Claiborne should be perpetual Governor, 

Few men ever lived who could so suit themselves to circumstances 
as Governor Claiborne. There was a strange fascination in his 
manners, and a real goodness of heart, which spell-bound every one 
who came within the range of his acquaintance. He granted a favor 
in a manner that the recipient forever felt the obligation, and when 
he refused one, it was with such apparent regret as to make a friend. 
He sincerely desired the best interest of every one, and promoted it 
whenever he could. It was said of him that he never refused, but 
always promised, and always fulfilled his promise whenever it was 
in his power. 

When coming to take charge of the Territorial Government he 
stopped at Baton Rouge, and spent the night with an honest Dutchman 
who kept entertainment for travellers. In the morning, when his guest 
was leaving, learning his official character, he took him aside, and 
solicited the appointment of justice of the peace for Baton Rouge. 
** Certainly, sir," said the Governor, "certainly;" and the Dutch- 
36* 



426 THE MEMORIES OF 

man, supposing the appointment made, hoisted his sign above his door, 
and continued to administer justice in his way until his death, with- 
out ever being questioned as to the nature of his appointment. The 
Governor never thought a second time of the promise. 

The selection and appointment of Governor Claiborne for the 
very delicate duties devolving on an American governor, with such 
a population as then peopled Louisiana, showed great wisdom and 
prudence in Mr. Jefferson : he was to reconcile discordant materials 
within the Territory, and reconcile all to the dominion of the United 
States. He was to introduce, with great caution, the institutions of 
a representative republican form of government among a people who 
had never known any but a despotic government ; whose language 
and religion were alien to the great mass of the people of the nation. 
An American Protestant population was hurrying to the country, 
and of all difficulties most difficult, to reconcile into harmonious 
action two antagonistic religions in the same community is certainly 
the one. Claiborne accomplished all this. His long continuance 
in office showed his popularity, and the prosperity of the people 
and Territory, his wisdom. 

In all his appointments he exercised great discretion, and in 
almost every case his judgment and wisdom were manifested in the 
result ; and to this day his name is revered and his memory cherished 
as a benefactor. He was twice married, and left two sons — one by 
each marriage; both live, highly respected, and very worthy citizens 
of the city of their birth. His name is borne by one of the finest 
parishes of the State and one of the most beautiful streets in the city 
of New Orleans, and no man ever deserved more this high and 
honorable commemoration from a grateful people than did William 
C. C. Claiborne. 

Among those most conspicuous in Americanizing the State and 
city at the early commencement of the American domination, after 
the Governor and Supreme Court, were Henry Johnson, Edward 
Livingston, James Brown, John R. Grymes, Thomas Urquhart, 
Boling Robinson, and General Philemon Thomas. 

Edward Livingston was a citizen at the time of the cession, having 
emigrated from New York in 1801, where he had already acquired 
fame as a lawyer. He was the brother of the celebrated Chancellor 
Livingston, and had, as an officer of the General Government, in 
the city of New York, defaulted in a large amount. To avoid the 



FIFTY YEARS. 427 

penalties of the law he came to New Orleans, then a colony of a 
foreign government, and there commenced the practice of his pro- 
fession. After the cession he was not disturbed by the Government, 
and continued actively to pursue his profession. 

He was the intimate friend of Daniel Clark, who was the first Ter- 
ritorial representative in Congress ; and it has been supposed that, 
through the instrumentality of Clark, the Government declined pur- 
suing the claim against him. lie first emerged to public view in a 
contest with Mr. Jefferson relative to the batture property in the city 
of New Orleans. Livingston had purchased a property above Canal 
Street, and claimed all the batture between his property and the 
river as riparian proprietor. This was contested by Mr. Jefferson 
as President of the United States. He claimed this as public land 
belonging to the United States under the treaty of purchase. The 
question was very ably argued by both parties ; but the title to this 
immensely valuable property remained unsettled for many years after 
the death of both Jefferson and Livingston, and finally was decreed 
by the Supreme Court of the United States to belong to the city of 
New Orleans. 

When, during the invasion of New Orleans by the English forces 
in the war of 1812 and '15, General Jackson came to its defence, 
Livingston volunteered as one of his aids, and rendered distinguished 
services to Jackson and the country in that memorable affair, the 
battle of New Orleans. A friendship grew up between Jackson and 
Livingston, which continued during their lives. Soon after the war, 
Livingston was elected to represent the New Orleans or First Con- 
gressional District in Congress. He continued for some time to 
represent this district; but was finally, about 1829, beaten by 
Edward D. White. At the succeeding session of the Legislature, 
however, he was elected a senator to Congress in the place of Henry 
Johnson. From the Senate he was sent as Minister to France, and 
was afterward Secretary of State during the administration of General 
Jackson. It was in his case that Jackson exercised the extraordinary 
power of directing the Treasurer of the United States to receipt Mr. 
1-ivingston for the sum of his defalcation thirty-four years before. 
At the time this was done, Tobias Watkins was in prison in Wash- 
ington for a defalcation of only a few hundreds to the Government. 
These two events gave rise to the ludicrous caricature, which caused 
much amusement at the time, of General Jackson's walking with his 



42^' THE MEMORIES OF 

arm in Livingston's by the jail, when Watkins, looking from the 
window, points to Livingston, saying to the General : " You should 
turn me out, or put him in." 

Immediately upon this receipt being recorded, Livingston pre- 
sented an account for mileage and per diem for all the time he had 
served in Congress, and received it. So long as he was a defaulter 
to the Government, he could receive no pay for public services. 

As a lawyer, Mr. Livingston had no superior. He was master of 
every system prevailing in the civilized world ; he spoke fluently 
four languages, and read double that number. As a statesman he 
ranked with the first of his country, and was skilled as a diplomatist. 
In every situation where placed by fortune or accident, he displayed 
ample ability for the discharge of its duties. It is not known, but 
is generally believed that, as Secretary of State, he wrote the state 
papers of General Jackson. The same has been said of that veteran 
Amos Kendall. There was one for which Livingston obtained the 
credit, which he certainly did not write — the celebrated proclamation 
to the people of South Carolina upon the subject of nullification. 
This was written by Mr. Webster. Upon one occasion, Mr. Webster, 
per invitation, with many members of Congress, dined with the 
President. When the company was about retiring, General Jackson 
requested Mr. Webster to remain, as he desired some conversation 
with him. The subject of South Carolina nullification had been 
discussed cursorily by the guests at dinner, and Jackson had been 
impressed with some of Webster's remarks ; and when alone together, 
he requested Webster's opinions on the subject at length. 

Mr. Webster replied, that the time was wanting for a full discussion 
of the question ; but if it would be agreeable to the President, he would 
put them in writing and send them to him. He did so. These 
opinions, expressing fully Mr. Webster's views, were handed to Mr. 
Livingston, who, approving them, made a few verbal alterations, and 
submitted the document, which was issued as the President's procla- 
mation. The doctrines politically enunciated in this paper are 
identical with those entertained in the great speech of Mr. Webster, 
in the famous contest with Robert T, Hayne, on Foote's Resolutions, 
some years before ; and are eminently Federal. They came like 
midnight at noon upon the States-Rights men of the South, and a 
Virginian, wherever found, groaned as he read them. 

Mr. Livingston, though a Jeffersonian Democrat in his early life, 



FIFTY YEARS. 429 

and now a Jackson Democrat, held very strong Federal notions in 
regard to the relations between the States and the United States 
Government, and was disposed to have these sanctioned by the 
adoption of General Jackson. 

Jackson, probably, never read this paper ; and if he did, did 
not exactly comprehend its tenor ; for General Jackson's political 
opinions were never very fixed or clear. What he willed, he exe- 
cuted, and though it cut across the Constitution, or the laws, his 
friends and followers threw up their caps and cheered him. 

Mr. Livingston was charged with the delicate duty of discussing 
the claims of our Government, representing its citizens, for spolia- 
tions committed upon our commerce under the celebrated Milan 
and Berlin decrees of Napoleon, and, backed by the determination 
of Jackson, happily succeeded in finally settling this vexatious ques- 
tion. A sum was agreed upon, and paid into the United States 
Treasury; but if I am not mistaken, none, or very little of it, has 
ever reached the hands of the sufferers. Upon the proof of the 
justice of their claims, France was compelled to pay them to the 
Government ; but now the Government wants additional proof of 
this same fact, before the money is paid over to them. 

Mr. Livingston's learning was varied and extensive; he was a fine 
classical scholar, and equally as accomplished in belles-lettres. In 
the literature of France, Germany, and Spain he was quite as well 
versed as in that of his native tongue. His historical knowledge was 
more extensive and more accurate than that of any public man of 
the day, except, perhaps, Mr. Benton. At the Bar, he met those 
eminent jurists, Grymes, Lilly, Brown, and Mazereau, and success- 
fully. This is great praise, for nowhere, in any city or country, were 
to be found their superiors in talent and legal lore. 

Livingston never had the full confidence of his party, and perhaps 
with the exception of General Jackson, that of any individual. In 
moneyed matters, he was eminently unreliable ; but all admitted his 
great abilities. In social qualities, he was entirely deficient. He 
had no powers of attraction to collect about him friends, or to 
attach even his political partisans. These were proud of his talents, 
and felt honored in his representation, and with the rest of the world 
honored and admired the statesman, while they despised the man. 
He was illiberal, without generosity, unsocial, and soulless, with every 
attribute of mind to be admired, without one quality of the heart to 



430 THE MEMORIES. OF 

be loved. In person he was tall and slender, and without grace in 
his movements, or dignity in his manners. With a most intellectual 
face, his brow was extremely arched, his eye gray, 'and his prominent 
forehead narrow but high and receding ; his mouth was large and 
well formed, and was as uncertain and restless as his eye. No one 
could mistake from his face the talent of the man ; yet there lurked 
through its every feature an unpleasant something, which forced an 
unfavorable opinion of the individual. Mr. Livingston lived very 
many years in Louisiana, and rendered her great services in codify- 
ing her laws, and making them clear and easy of comprehension. 
He shed lustre upon her name, by his eminent abilities as a jurist and 
statesman, and thus has identified his name most prominently with 
her history. But without those .shining qualities which clasp to the 
heart in devoted affection the great man, and which constitute one 
great essential of true greatness. And now that he is in the grave, 
he is remembered with cold respect alone. 

Stephen Mazereau was a Frenchman, a Parisian, and a lawyer there 
of the first eminence. When about to emigrate to Madrid, in Spain, 
the Bar of his native city presented him with a splendid set of silver, 
in respect for his position as a lawyer and his virtues as a man. He 
remained ten years in Spain's capital, and was at the head of the Bar 
of that city ; and when leaving it to come to New Orleans, received 
a similar testimonial from his brethren there to his worth and talents. 
Immediately upon coming to New Orleans, he commenced the prac- 
tice of the law, and at once took rank with Livingston, Lilly, Brown, 
and Grymes, who, though then a very young man, had already 
gained eminence in his profession. 

Mr. Mazereau, except giving his State, in the Legislature, the 
benefit of his abilities, avoided politics, confining himself exclusively 
to his profession. In the argument of great questions before the 
Supreme Court of the State between these eminent jurists, was to be 
seen the combat of giants. Mazereau was a short, stout man, with 
an enormous head, which made his appearance singularly unique. In 
his arguments he was considerate, cautious, and eminently learned. 
Sometimes he would address the people on great political questions, 
and then all the fervor of the Frenchman would burst forth in elo- 
quent and impressive appeals. I remember hearing him, when he 
was old, address an immense gathering of the people. He looked 
over the crowd, when he rose, and said : " I see three nations before 



FIFTY YEARS. 43I 

me. Americans, I shall speak to you first. Frenchmen, to you next 
— and to you, my Spanish friends, last. I shall probably occupy 
two hours with each of you. It will be the same speech ; so you 
who do not understand the English language, need not remain. You 
who understand French, may return when I shall dismiss these 
Americ2*is — and you, my Spanish friends, when I am through with 
these Frenchmen." This he fulfilled to the letter in a six-hours' 
speech, and I never knew a political speech effect so much. 

For many years he was attorney -general of the State, and legal 
adviser and counsellor of the Governor. Although his practice was 
eminently profitable, he was so careless and extravagant in money 
matters, that he was always poor and necessitous, especially in his 
old age. 

It really seems one of the attributes of genius to be indifferent to 
this world's goods, and when time and labor have done their work, 
and the imbecility of years obscures its brilliancy, to droop neglected, 
and, if not in want, in despised poverty. Such was the fate for a 
sliort time of this great man — but only for a short time. His powerful 
intellect retained its vigor, and his brilliant wit all its edges, to 
within a little while of his death. Sadly I turn back, in memory, to 
the day he communicated to me that his necessities would compel 
him to dispose of the beautiful and valuable testimonials of the Bar 
of two proud nations to his character and abilities. His great intel- 
lect was beginning to fade out ; but, as the sun, declining to rest 
canopied with increasing clouds, will sometimes pierce through the 
interstices of the dark masses, and dart for a moment the intensity 
of his light upon the earth, the mind of Mazereau would flash in all 
its youthful grandeur and power from the dimness that was darkening 
it out. 

He was a noble specimen of a French gentleman : a French 
scholar, and a Frenchman. His memory is embalmed in the hearts 
of his friends of every nation who knew him in New Orleans. 
Strictly moral in his habits, full of truth and honor, and overflowing 
with generosity, social in hi§ habits, and kindly in his feelings, he 
made friends of all who came in contact with him; and yet he had 
his enemies. His intolerance of everything that \yas little or mean, 
and his scorn and hatred of men of such character, was never con- 
cealed, either in his conversation or conduct. Such men were his 
enemies, and some, too, were his foes from the intolerance of polit- 



432 THE MEMORIES OF 

ical antagonism ; but the grave obliterated these animosities, and 
the generous political antagonist cherishes now only respect for this 
truly great man. With deep gratitude my heart turns to his memory : 
his generous kindness, his warm friendship was mine for long years, 
and to me his memory is an incense. 

John R. Grymes was a Virginian and close connecticlll of John 
Randolph, of Roanoke, whose name he bore; but of this he never 
boasted, nor did any one hear him claim alliance of blood with 
Pocahontas. Mr. Madison appointed him district attorney of the 
United States for the district of Louisiana, when a very young man. 
This appointment introduced him to the Bar and the practice immedi- 
ately. He was one of those extraordinary creations, who leap into 
manhood without the probation of youth : at twenty-two he was 
eminent and in full practice, ranking with the leading members of 
the Bar. Truly, Grymes was born great, for no one can remember 
when he was not great ! Never, in company, in social life, with a 
private friend, at the Bar, or anywhere, was he even apparently 
simple or like other men ; in private, with his best friend, he spoke, 
he looked, and he was the great man. He was great in his frivolities, 
great in his burlesques, great in his humor, great in common con- 
versation ; the great lawyer, the great orator, the great blackguard, 
and the great companion, the great bfeau, and the great spendthrift: 
in nothing was he little. 

His language was ornate, his style was terse and beautiful ; in 
conversation he was voluble and transcendently entertaining ; knew 
everybody and everything ; never seemed to read, and yet was 
always prepared in his cases, and seemed to be a lawyer by intuition. 
He was rarely in his office, but always on the street, and always dressed 
in the extreme of the fashion ; lived nowhere, boarded nowhere, 
slept nowhere, and ate everywhere. He dined at a restaurant, but 
scarcely ever at the same twice in succession ; would search for hours 
to find a genial friend to dine with him, and then, if he was in the 
mood, there was a feast of the body and flow of the soul ; went to 
every ball, danced with everybody, visited the ladies; was learned 
or frivolous, as suited the ladies' capacities or attainments ; appeared 
fond of their society, and always spoke of them with ridicule or con- 
ternpt ; married, and separated from his wife, no one knew for what 
cause, yet still claimed and supported her. She was the widow of, 
Governor Claiborne, and a magnificent woman; she was a Spaniard 



FIFTY YEARS. 433 

by blood, aristocratic in her feelings, eccentric, and, intellectually, a 
fit companion for Grymes. She was to Claiborne an admirable wife, 
but there was little congeniality between her and Grymes. Grymes 
knew that it was not possible for any woman to tolerate him as a 
husband, and was contented to live apart from his wife. They were 
never divt)rced, but lived — she in New York, or at her villa on 
Staten Island ; Grymes in New Orleans. He never complained of 
her ; always spoke kindly, and sometimes affectionately of her ; 
denied the separation, and annually visited her. Their relations 
were perfectly amicable, but they could not live together, Grymes 
could have lived with no woman. In all things he was sui generis ; 
with no one like him in any one thing, for he was never the same 
being two consecutive days. He had no fixed opinions that any one 
knew of; he was a blatant Democrat, and yet never agreed with them 
in anything; a great advocate of universal equality, and the veriest 
aristocrat on earth ; he would urge to-day as a great moral or political 
truth certain principles, and ridicule them with contemptuous scorn 
to-morrow. He was the most devoiit of Christians to-day, the most 
abandoned infidel to-morrow; and always, and with everybody, 
striving to appear as base and as abandoned as profligate man could 
be : to believe all he said of himself, was to believe him the worst 
man on earth. He despised public opinion and mankind generally; 
still he was kind in his nature, and generous to profligacy; was 
deeply sympathetic, and never turned from the necessitous without 
dropping a tear or giving a dollar — the one he bestowed generously, 
the other he rarely had to give; but, if an acquaintance was at hand, 
he would borrow and give, and the charity of heart was as sincere as 
though the money had been his own. 

On one occasion I was with him when charity was solicited of 
him by a wretched old woman. "Give me five dollars," he said to 
me ; the money was handed the woman, and she was sent away, to 
be drunk and in a police-station within the hour. I remarked: 
"That old wretch has brought all this upon her by an abandoned 
profligacy." "Then I owe her sympathy as well as charity," was 
his reply ; "I do not know the cause of her .suffering, but I know 
she is suffering: it may be for food, it may be for drink ; if either 
obliterates her misery, your money is well spent." 
^ He had no idea of the value of money ; was constantly in the 
receipt of large fees, with a most lucrative practice, but was always 
37 2C 



434 THE MEMORIES OF 

embarrassed, owed everybody, loaned to everybody, gave to every- 
body, and paid nobody. 

During the existence of the law which imprisoned for debt, he was 
constantly in the sheriff's hands, but always settling, by the most 
ingenious devices, the claim at the jail-door. It is told of him; that 
the sheriff on one occasion notified him that there was a ca. sa. in 
his hands, and that he did not want to arrest him. The sum was 
large, some two thousand dollars — Grymes had not a dollar. He 
paused a moment, then said, "Come to me to-morrow. I have a 
case of Milliadon's for trial to-morrow; he is greatly interested in it. 
When it is called, I will give you the wink, then arrest me." In 
obedience to directions, the sheriff came, the case was called, and 
Grymes arrested. Milliadon was in court, his hopes were in Grymes, 
and when he was informed that Grymes was in custody of the sheriff, 
he groaned aloud. 

" Oh 1 Mr. Grymes, vat am I to do?" 

" Why, you must employ other counsel," said Grymes. 

" Mon dieii ! but I have pay you for attend this case, and I want 
you. You know about it, and it must be try now." 

"Yes," continued the imperturbable Grymes, "you have paid me, 
I know, and I know it would be dangerous to trust it to other counsel, 
but it is your only hope. I have no money, and here ,is a ca. sa., 
and I am on my way to jail." 

" Oh ! mon dicu / mon dieu ! vat is de amoimt of de ca. sa. ?^^ 

"Two thousand dollars," said the sheriff. 

" Two thousand dollars ! " repeated Milliadon. 

" Goodall vs. Milliadon," said the Judge, "Preston, for plaintiff 
— Grymes, for defendant. What do you do with this case, gen- 
tlemen ? " 

"We are ready," said Preston. 

"And you, Mr. Grymes? " asked the court. 

" Vill you take my check for de ca. sa., Mr. Sheriff? " 

"Certainly, sir," replied the officer. 

" Say we is ready too, Mr. Grymes — all my witness be here." 

" I believe we are ready, your honor," answered Grymes. 
Milliadon was writing his check. "Enter satisfaction on the ca. 
sa.,^' said Grymes. The sheriff did so, as Milliadon handed him 
the check. Grymes now turned his attention to the case as coolly as 



FIFTY YEARS. 435 

tliough nothing had occurred. That was the last Milliadon ever 
heard of his two thousand dollars. 

Laurent Milliadon and the millionaire John McDonough were 
litigious in their characters ; and their names occur in the report of 
the Supreme Court decisions more frequently than those of any 
ten other men in the State. Grymes was the attorney for both of 
them for many years. They were both men of great shrewdness, 
and both speculative in their characters, and both had accumulated 
large fortunes. Without any assignable cause, McDonough ceased 
to employ Grymes, and intrusted his business to other counsel, who 
did not value their services so extravagantly. Mentioning the fact 
upon one occasion to Grymes, "Ah! yes," said he, "I can explain 
to your satisfaction the cause. In a certain case of his, in which he 
had law and justice with him, he suddenly became very uneasy. * I 
shall certainly lose it, Grymes,' he said excitedly to me. I told him 
it was impossible; he had never had so sure a thing since I had been 
his attorney. In his dogmatical manner, which you know, he still 
persisted in saying, he was no great lawyer as I was, but some things 
he knew better than any lawyer, and * I shall lose that case." At the 
same time he significantly touched his pocket and then his palm, 
signifying that money had been paid by his adversary to the court, 
or some member of it. ' Ah ! ' said I, ' are you sure — very sure?' 
* Very sure — I know it ; and you will see I shall lose this suit.' He 
was not wont to speak so positively, without the best evidence of any 
fact. 'Well, Mac,' said I, jestingly, * if that is the game, who can 
play it better than you can — you have a larger stake than any of 
them, and of course better ability? ' Well, sir, he did lose one of 
the plainest cases I ever presented to a court. From that day for- 
ward I have not received a fee from him : and now the secret is 
before the world. He has been detected in bribing one of the 
judges of the Supreme Court." 

As an orator, Grymes was among the first of the country. All he 
wanted, to have been exceedingly eloquent, was earnestness and 
feeling; of this he was devoid. His manijer was always collected 
and cool ; his style chaste and beautiful, with but little ornament; he 
spoke only from the brain — there was nothing from the heart. In 
argument he was exceedingly cogent and lucid) and when the 
subject seemed most complicated, the acuteness of his analytical 



436 THE MEMORIES OF 

mind seemed to unravel and lay bare the true features of the case, 
with an ease and power that required scarce an effort. His powers 
of ratiocination were very great, and this was the forte of his mind ; 
his conclusions were clearly deduced from arguments always logical. 

There were times when he would be serious — and then there was a 
grandeur about him very striking. At such times, bursts of passion- 
ate feeling would break from him that seemed like volcanic erup- 
tions. They appeared to come from a deep and intense tenderness 
of heart. These were momentary — the lightning's flash illuminating 
the gloom and darkness of its parent cloud. I have thought this 
was the man's nature, born with a heart capable of intense feeling, 
which had been educated to believe this weakness. Coming very 
young away from his home and early associations, to live and mingle 
with strangers of a different race — leaving the rural scenes and home 
associations which were forming and developing nature's glorious 
gifts, to come to a profligate and heartless city — the whole current 
of his susceptible nature was changed, and the feeling and good per- 
verted and overshadowed, yet not entirely rooted out. Hence the 
contradictions in his character. Sometimes nature was too strong 
for art, and would break out in beauty, as the flower, rich in fra- 
grance and delicate loveliness, when touched by the genial sun, will 
burst from the black and uninviting bud. 

Upon one occasion, when there was a United States senator to be 
elected, and when the Democratic party held a majority in the 
Legislature, rendering it impossible for the Whigs to elect any 
member of their own party, yet, Avith the assistance of three from the 
Democratic party, could choose from this party any man they would 
select and unite upon — they determined to propose Grymes, and 
had secured the requisite assistance from the Democracy. I was a 
member, and a Whig, and was delegated to communicate the facts 
to Grymes. I knew the Senate had been his ambition for years. I 
knew he felt his powers would give him a position with the greatest 
of that body, and an immediate national reputation, and had no 
doubt of his cheerful acquiescence. To my astonishment he assumed 
a grave and most serious manner. " I am grateful, most grateful to 
you," he said, ''for I know this has been brought about by you, and 
that you sincerely desire to gratify me ; but I cannot consent to be a 
candidate. Most frankly will I tell you my reasons. I admit it has 
been my desire for years. It has been, I may say to you, my life- 



FIFTY YEARS. 437 

long ambition ; but I have always coupled the possession of the 
position with the power of sustaining it reputably. I was never 
ambitious of the silly vanity of simply being a senator and known 
as such ; but of giving to it the character and dignity due it. Louis- 
iana is a proud State, her people are a noble and a proud people, 
they have a right to be so — look at her ! With a soil and a climate 
congenial to the production of the richest staples now ministering 
to the luxuries and necessities of man — with a river emptying into 
her commercial mart the productions of a world, her planters are 
princes, in feeling, fortune, and position. At their mansions is dis- 
pensed a noble hospitality, rich in the feasts of body and mind, 
generous and open as was Virginia's in her proudest days. At 
Washington I would represent these, and the merchant-princes of 
her metropolis. You have said, as eloquently as truly, ' There is 
but one Mississippi River ; but one Louisiana ; but one New Orleans 
on the face of the earth.' As she is, and as her people are, I would 
represent her as her senator. 

"I am a beggar, and cannot consent, in this character, to be 
made more conspicuous, by being made a beggarly senator. I cannot 
take a house in Washington, furnish it, and live in it as a gentleman. 
I could not, in any other manner, entertain my people visiting Wash- 
ington, consistently with my ideas of what a senator should do. I 
cannot go to Washington, and, as one of them, stand among the 
great men of the Senate, in that magnificent hall, and feel my soul 
swell to theirs and its proportions, and then dodge you, or any other 
gentleman from Louisiana, and sneak home to a garret. My means 
would allow me no better apartment. I could not live in the mean 
seclusion of a miserable penury, nor otherwise than in a style com- 
porting, in my estimation, with the dignity and the duty of a senator 
from Louisiana, as some have done, who were able to live and enter- 
tain as gentlemen, for the purpose of the degraded saving of half my 
per diem to swell my coffers at home. 

"Now, my friend, I feel how miserably foolish I have been all 
my life. I have thrown away fortune because I despised it. It was 
too grovelling a pursuit, too mean a vocation, to make and to hoard 
money. In my soul I despised it, and now you see it is revenged ; 
for without it, I have learned, there is no gratification for ambition 
— no independence of a sneering, envious world. A bankrupt is a 
felon, though his mind, his virtues, and his attainments may be those 
37* 



438 THE MEMORIES OF 

of a god. He is a useless waif upon the world ; for all he has, or all 
he may be, is, to himself and the world, unavailable without money. 
I have discarded all my ambitious aspirations long since, and tried 
to reconcile myself to the fact that my life has been and is a failure. 
And 'I am sorry you have come to me to remind me that the aim of 
my young life was within my reach, when I have no means to grasp 
it, and, now that I am miserable, to show me what I might have been. 
No, my friend, I must go on with the drudgery of the law, to earn 
my bread, and thus eke out a miserable future. I am grateful to you 
and my other friends, who have delegated you to this mission. Say 
so to them, if you please. I must go to court. The horse of the 
bark-mill must go to his daily circle. Good morning ! " 

Some years after the event above mentioned, Grymes, as the attor- 
ney of the city of New Orleans, succeeded, before the Supreme Court 
of the United States, in making good the title to the batture prop- 
erty in the city. What is termed batture in Louisiana is the land 
made by accretion or deposits of the Mississippi. One strange fea- 
ture of this great river is, that it never gets any wider. It is con- 
tinually wearing and caving on one side or the other, and making a 
corresponding deposit on the other bank. Opposite a portion of the 
city of New Orleans this deposit has been going on for many years, 
while the opposite bank has been wearing away. There are living 
citizens who saw in youth the river occupying what is now covered 
by many streets and many blocks of buildings, and is one of the 
most valuable portions of the city. In truth, what was a century 
ago entire river, is now one-fourth of the city, and this deposit goes 
on annually without any decrease in its ratio. 

By agreement of all parties, this batture was surveyed into squares 
and lots, and sold at public auction, and the money deposited in the 
Bank of Louisiana, to the credit of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, to abide the decision of that tribunal as to the rightful owner- 
ship. The decision gave it to the city. Grymes, as attorney for the 
city, by order of the court, received a check for the money. The 
bank paid the check, and Grymes appropriated one hundred thou- 
sand dollars of it, as a fee for his services, and then deposited the bal- 
"ance to the credit of the mayor and council of the city. This was 
a large fee, but was not really what he was entitled to, under the cus- 
tom of chancery for collecting money. He had agreed to pay Daniel 
Webster for assistance rendered ; but Mr. Webster, some years after, 



FIFTY YEARS. 439 

informed me that he had never l-eceived a cent, and I am sure he 
never did, after that. 

Grymes was well aware, if the gity fathers got their hands upon the 
money, it would be years before he got this amount, if ever. Wiih 
a portion of this money he liquidated all claims not antiquated and 
forgotten by him, and the balance was intrusted to the haiids of a 
friend to invest for his benefit. This, together with his practice, 
which was now declining, furnished a handsome support for him. 
Age appeared to effect little change in h.\?, personnel. At sixty-seven, 
he was as erect in person and as elastic in step as at thirty. There 
was none of that embo7ipoint usually the consequence of yeais and 
luxurious living. He was neither slender nor fat ; but what is most 
agreeable to the eye — between the two, with a most perfectly formed 
person. His features were manly, and strikingly beautiful ; his blue 
eyes beaming with the hauteur of high breeding and ripe intelligence. 
These features were too often disfigured with the sneer of scorn, or 
the curled lip of expressive contempt. His early hopes, his man- 
hood's ambition had been disappointed ; and, soured and sore, he 
sneered at the world, and despised it. He had no confidence in man 
or woman, and had truly reached Hamlet's condition, when "Man 
delighted him not, nor woman either." He felt the world was his 
debtor; and was niggardly in its payments. He grew more and more 
morose as the things of time receded. Others, full of youth, talent, 
and vigor, were usurping the positions and enjoying the honors of 
life, which were slipping away from him unenjoyed. He turned upon 
these the bitterness engendered by disappointment. Cynicism lent 
edge to his wit, and bitterness to his sarcasm. He was at war with 
himself, and consequently with all the world. His mind felt none 
of the imbecility of age, and to the last retained its perspicuity and 
power. As he came into life a man, and never knew a boyhood, so 
he went from it a man, without the date of years. At sixty-eight years 
of age, he went quietly from life without suffering, and, to himself, 
without regret. He was a man — take him all in all — whose like we 
shall not look on soon again. 

The virtues and the vices, the loves and the hates of life were 
strangely blended in the character of John Randolph Grymes ; but 
if we judge from the fact that he had and left many warm and devoteil 
friends, and few enemies, we must suppose the good in his nature 
greatly preponderated. But notwithstanding the great space he had 



440 THE MEMORIES OF 

filled in the eyes of the people of the city, his death startled only for 
a moment, and straightway he was forgotten ; as the falling pebble 
dimples for a moment the lake's quiet surface — then all is smooth 
again. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

DIVISION OF NEW ORLEANS INTO MUNICIPALITIES. 

American Hotel — IntroductiTjn of Steamboats — Faubourg St. Mary — 
Canal Street — St. Charles Hotel — Samuel J. Peters — James H. 
Caldwell — Fathers of the Municipality — Bernard Marigny — An 
Ass — A. B. Roman. 

FORTY years ago there was not a public hotel in the city of New- 
Orleans which received and entertained ladies. There was but 
one respectable American hotel in the city. This was kept by John 
Richardson, who still lives, and was on Conti Street, between Chartres 
and the levee. About that time Madame Heries opened the Planter's 
Hotel on Canal Street, Avhich some years after fell and crushed to death 
some thirty persons. There were many boarding - houses, where 
ladies were entertained, and to these were all ladies visiting the city 
constrained to resort. Some of these were well kept and comfortable, 
but afforded none or very few of the advantages of public hotels. 
They were generally kept by decayed females who were constrained 
to this vocation by pecuniary misfortunes. The liberal accommoda- 
tion afforded in hotels, especially built and furnished for the pur- 
pose, was not to be found in any of them. 

At this period all th^ means of travel between Mobile and New 
Orleans, across the Lake, consisted of one or two schooners, as reg- 
ular weekly packets, plying between the two cities. It was about this 
time that the tide of emigration which had peopled the West, 
and the rapid increase of production, was stimulating the commerce 
of New Orleans. It was obeying the impulse, and increasing in 
equal ratio its population. This commerce was chiefly conducted 
by Americans, and most of these were of recent establishment in the 
city. That portion of the city above Canal Street, and then known 



FIFTY YEARS. 44I 

as the Faubourg St. Mary, was little better than a marsh in its greater 
portion. Along the river and Canal Street, there was something 
of a city appearance, in the improvements and business, where there 
were buildings. In every other part there were shanties, and these 
were filled with a most miserable population. 

About this time, too, steamboats were accumulating upon the West- 
ern waters — a new necessity induced by the increase of travel and com- 
merce — affording facilities to the growing population and increasing 
production of the vast regions developing under the energy of enterprise 
upon the Mississippi and her numerous great tributaries. It seemed 
that at this juncture the whole world was moved by a new impulse. 
The difificulties of navigating the Mississippi River had been over- 
come, and the consequences of this new triumph of science and man's 
ingenuity were beginning to assume a more vigorous growth. 

The Ohio and its tributaries were peopling with a hardy and indus- 
trious race ; the Missouri, Arkansas, and Red rivers, too, were filling 
with a population which was sweeping away the great wild forests, and 
fields of teeming production were smiling in their stead. New Or- 
leans was the market-point for all that was, and all that was to be, the 
growth of these almost illimitable regions. It was, as it ever is, the 
exigencies of man ansAvered by the inspirations of God. The neces- 
sities of this extending population along the great rivers demanded 
means of transportation. These means were to be devised, by whom ? 
The genius of Fulton was inspired, and the steamboat sprang into 
existence. The necessity existed no longer, and the flood of popu- 
lation poured in and subdued the earth to man's will, to man's wants. 
Over the hills and valleys, far away it went, crowding back the savage, 
demanding and taking for civilized uses his domain of wilderness, 
and creating new necessities — and again the inspired genius of man 
gave to the world the railroad and locomotive. 

The great increase in the production of cotton in the West, and 
which went for a market to New Orleans, necessitated greater ac- 
commodations for the trade in that city — presses for compressing, 
and houses for merchants, where the business could be conducted 
with greater facility and greater convenience. American merchants 
crowded to the city, and located their places of business above Canal 
Street, beyond which there was not a street paved. There was not a 
wharf upon which to discharge freights, consequently the cotton bales 
had to be rolled from the steamers to the levee, which in the almost 



442 THE MEMORIES OF 

continued rains of winter were muddy, and almost impassable at times 
for loaded vehicles. Below Canal Street the levee was made firm by 
being well shelled, and the depth of water enabled boats and ship- 
ping to come close alongside the bank, which the accumulating bat- 
ture prevented above. 

The French, or Creole population greatly preponderated, and this 
population was all below Canal Street. They elected the mayor, 
and two-thirds of the council, and these came into office with all the 
prejudices of that people against the Americans, whom a majority 
of them did not hesitate to denominate intruders. The consequence 
was the expenditure of all the revenue of the city upon improvements 
below Canal Street. Every effort was made to force trade to the 
lower portion of the city. This was unavailing. The Faubourg St. 
Mary continued to improve, and most rapidly. Business and cotton- 
presses sprang up like magic. Americans were purchasing sugar 
plantations and moving into the French parishes, drawing closer the 
relations of fellow-citizens, and becoming more and more acquainted 
with the feelings and opinions of each other, and establishing 
good neighborhoods and good feelings, and by degrees wearing out 
these national prejudices, by encouraging social intercourse and 
fraternity. They were introducing new methods of cultivation, and 
new modes of making sugar; pushing improvements, stimulating 
enterprise, and encouraging a community of feeling, as they held a 
common interest in the country. In the country parishes these pre- 
judices of race had never been so strong as in the city, and were fast 
giving way; intermarriages and family relations were beginning to 
identify the people, and this to some extent was true in the city. But 
here there was a conflict of interest, and this seemed on the increase. 
The improvements made in the Faubourg were suggested by the 
necessities of commerce, and this naturally went to these. There 
was a superior enterprise in the American merchant, there was greater 
liberality in his dealings: he granted hazardous accommodations to 
trade, and made greater efforts to secure it. This had the effect of 
securing the rapidly increasing commerce of the city to the American 
merchants, and of course was promoting the settlement and improve- 
ment of the Faubourg St. Mary. It excited, too, more and more the 
antipathies of the ancient population. These, controlling the city 
government constantly in a most envious spirit, refused to extend, the 
public improvements of the Faubourg. 



FIFTY YEARS. 443 

There was not, forty years ago, or in 1828, a paving-stone above 
Canal Street, nor could any necessity induce the government of the 
city to pave a single street. Where now stands the great St. Charles 
Hotel, there was an unsightly and disgusting pond of fetid water, 
and the locations now occupied by the City Hotel and the St. James 
were cattle-pens. There was not a wharf in the entire length of the 
city, and the consequence was an enormous tax levied upon produce, 
in the shape of drayage and repairs of injuries to packages, from the 
want of these prime necessities. 

The navigation of the Bayou St. John commanded for the lower 
portion of the city the commerce crossing the lake, and to monopo- 
lize the profits of travel, a railroad was proposed from the lake to the 
river, and speedily completed. The people of the Faubourg, to 
counteract as much as possible these advantages, constructed a canal 
from the city to the lake, which was to enter the city, or Faubourg 
St. Mary, at the foot of Julia Street, one of the broadest and best 
streets in that quarter of the city. This was of sufficient capacity 
for schooners and steamboats of two hundred tons burden. When 
this was completed, with great difficulty the authorities were pre- 
vailed upon to pave Julia Street; still the greatly increasing demands 
of commerce were neglected, and while by these refusals the popu- 
lation of the city proper was doing all it could to force down to the 
city this increasing trade, they neglected to do anything there for 
its accommodation. The streets were very narrow ; the warehouses 
small and inconvenient; the merchants close and unenterprising, 
seemingly unconscious of the great revolution going on in their 
midst. 

From the growing greatness of the surplus products of the im- 
mense Valley, this was quadrupling annually. The cotton crop 
of the United States, forty years ago, scarcely reached half a million 
of bales, and of this New Orleans did not receive one-third ; but in 
live years after, her receipts were very nearly one-half of the entire 
crop. At the same period, the sugar crop did not amount to more 
than twenty thousand hogsheads ; five years thereafter, it had quad- 
rupled, and tjie commerce from the upper rivers had increased a 
hundred-fold, and was going on in all the products of the soil to 
increase in like ratio. At this time the antipathy was at its acme 
between the two races or populations: 

Then the Legislature held its sessions in New Orleans, and the 



444 THE MEMORIES OF 

American residents, merchants, and property - holders determined 
to apply to the Legislature for an amendment of the city charter. 
A bill was introduced accordingly, proposing to divide the city into 
three municipalities, making Canal and Esplanade streets the lines 
of division ; giving the city proper and each faubourg a separate 
government : in truth, making three cities where there had been but 
one. The excitement in the city became intense, and sectional 
animosities increased in bitterness. To the American population it 
was a matter of prime necessity ; to the property -holders and mer- 
chants of the city proper it was a matter of life and death. To 
these it was apparent that the moment this bill became a law, and 
the Faubourg St. Mary controlled her own finances, her streets 
would be paved and warehouses spring up to meet every demand — 
wharves would be constructed, the quay or levee would be shel- 
tered, capital would flow to the Faubourg, and, in a moment as it 
were, she would usurp the entire domestic trade of the country : 
in other words, the Faubourg St. Mary would become the City of 
New Orleans. 

After carefully canvassing the Legislature, it was found very 
doubtful whether the bill would pass or not ; the attempt had here- 
tofore proved eminently unsuccessful, but now it was apparent that 
it had gained many friends, and it was not certain it could be 
defeated. Under these circumstances, overtures were made by the 
city government, to expend all the revenue in improvements above 
Canal Street, which should be collected from the inhabitants of that 
quarter. This proposition was declined, and the bill after a most 
extiting struggle became a law. Under its provisions a new council 
and recorder were chosen, and a new impetus was given the Faubourg 
St. Mary, which was now, under this law, the second municipality. 
Extensive wharves were erected along the front of the municipality ; 
streets were paved, and the whole trading community felt the im- 
provements were assuming gigantic proportions, and trade relieved 
of onerous and vexatious impositions. Property rose in value rap- 
idly ; Canal Street grew speedily into importance. The dry-goods 
trade, hitherto confined almost exclusively to Chartres Street, came out 
upon this magnificent street as rapidly as it could be accommodated. 
From an almost deserted suburb, it became the centre of business 
and the great boulevard of the city. A company built the great 



FIFTY YEARS. 445 

St. Charles Hotel, and here were first opened hotel accommodations 
for ladies in New Orleans, thirty-one years ago. 

The commercial crisis of 1837 retarded temporarily the improve- 
ments, but only for a day as it were, and in a few years there was a great 
American city, fashioned by American energy and American capital 
from the unsightly and miserable mire of the Faubourg St. Mary. 

To the enterprise and perseverance of two men was mostly due 
this rapid improvement of the city arid its new and extended accom- 
modations to commerce — Samuel J. Peters and James H. Caldwell. 
Mr. Peters was a native of Canada, and came when quite a youth to 
New Orleans. He married a Creole lady, a native of the city; and, 
after serving as a clerk for some time in the business house of James 
H. Leverick & Co., commenced business as a wholesale grocer. In 
this business he was successful, and continued in it until his death. 
He was a man of splendid abilities and great business tact, great 
energy and application, and full of public spirit. New Orleans 
he viewed as his home ; he identified himself and family with the 
people, and his fame with her prosperity. To this end he devoted 
his time and energies ; around him congregated others who lent 
willingly and energetically their aid to accomplish his conceptions, 
and to fashion into realities the projections of his mind. I remem- 
ber our many walks about the second municipality — when, where now 
is the City Hall, and Camp and Charles streets, and when these 
magnificent streets, now stretching for miles away, ornamented with 
splendid buildings and other improvements, were but muddy roads 
through open lots, with side-walks of flat-boat gunwales, with only 
here and there a miserable shanty, with a more miserable tenant — 
to contemplate and talk of the future we both lived to see of this 
municipality. Stopping on one occasion in front of what is La- 
fayette Square, at the time the bill was pending for the division of 
the city into municipalities, he said: "Here must be the City of 
New Orleans. You can pass the bill, now before the Legislature ; and 
if you will, I promise you I will make the Faubourg St. Mary the 
City of New Orleans." Only a few months before his death, we 
stood again upon the same spot, surrounded by magnificent build- 
ings — Odd-Fellows' Hall, the First Presbyterian Church, the great 
City Hall, and grand and beautiful buildings of every character. 
" Do you remember my promise made here?" he said. "Have I 
fulfilled it? Manv days of arduous labor and nights of anxious 
38 



446 THE MEMORIES OF 

thought that promise cost me. You did your part well, and when I 
thought it impossible. Have I done mine ? " I could but answer: 
" Well, and worthily ! " I never saw him after — but I shall never 
cease to remember him as a great, tnie man. 

James H. Caldwell was an Englishman, and by profession a come- 
dian. It was he who first brought a theatrical company to the West. 
He had built the first theatres in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Or- 
leans, and first created a taste for theatricals in the great West. Pos- 
sessing fine natural abilities, and wonderful enterprise, he pushed his 
fortunes, as a theatrical manager, successfully for a number of years. 
He built the Camp Street Theatre, and made it exceedingly profita- 
ble. Away back, forty-five years ago, I remember my first meeting 
with him at Vicksburg, then a little hamlet, with but few houses and 
many hills, abrupt, and ugly. He and his company were descend- 
ing to Natchez, and thence, after a short season, to New Orleans. 
Edwin Forrest, then a youth, was one of his company, which also 
included Russell and wife, Sol. Smith and brother, with their wives, 
Mrs. Rose Crampton, and, as a star, Junius Brutus Booth. How 
wild was the scene around us ! The river was low and sluggish ; the 
boat small and dirty; the captain ignorant and surly; the company 
full of life, wit, and humor. Slowly we labored on. The dense 
forest came frowning to the river's brink, with onljthere and there, 
at long intervals, an opening, where some adventurous pioneer had 
cut and burned the cane, and built his shanty. The time was whiled 
away with song, recitation, anecdotes, and laughter, until midnight 
brought us to Natchez. It was a terrible night — dark, and begin- 
ning to rain. Under the hill at Natchez, forty-five years ago, was a 
terrible place. The road up the bluff was precipitous and muddy. 
There were no accommodations for decent people under the hill. 
The dance-houses were in full blast. Boisterous and obscene mirth 
rang from them ; men and women were drunk ; some were singing 
obscene songs; some were shouting profanity in every disgusting 
term ; some, overcome with debauchery, were insensible to shame, 
and men and women, rushing from house to house, gathered a crowd 
to meet us as we landed. One tremendous slattern shouted, as she 
saw us come on shore : " There are the show-folks ; now we '11 have 
fun ! " If Mrs. Farren — the daughter of Russell — still lives, I will 
say to her that this was her advent to Natchez. Up that hill, 
through mire and rain, I bore her in my arms, on that terrible 



FIFTY YEARS. 447 

night. Caldwell alone was cheerful ; Sol. Smith joked, and Russell 
swore. 

" How many, many memories 
Sweep o'er my spirit now ! " 

It was a peculiarity of James H. Caldwell to do whatever he did 
with all his might. No obstacle seemed to deter or impede the exe- 
cution of any public or individual enterprise of his. Beside being a 
splendid performer, he was an accomplished gentleman, and a fine, 
classic scholar. His reading was select and extensive. At a very 
early day, he was impressed with the future importance of New 
Orleans as a commercial city, and commenced to identify himself 
with the American population, and to make this his future home. 
His ideas on this subject were in advance of those of many whose 
business had always been commerce, and they were generally deemed 
Utopian and extravagant ; but his self-reliance was too great to heed 
any ridicule thrown upon any thought or enterprise of his. He 
invested his limited means in property in the second municipality, 
and lent himself, heart and soul, in connection with Peters, to its 
development into the proportions his imagination conceived it was 
ultimately capable of attaining, should the extent of its commerce 
reach the magnitude he supposed it would. Immediately upon the 
amendment of the city charter, creating the municipalities, and 
making independent the second, Caldwell conceived the idea of 
lighting the city with gas, and, at the same time, of building a city 
hall, and the establishment of a system of public schools. 

Edward York, a merchant of the city, gave this idea his special 
attention, and co-operated with Peters and Caldwell in every project 
for the advancement of the interests of the municipality. Caldwell 
set to work in the face of difficulties, which really seemed insurmount- 
able, to effect his scheme of lighting the city with gas. I was at that 
time a member of the Legislature. Caldwell's scheme was to obtain 
a charter for a bank, and with this carry into execution rapidly his 
scheme. He came to me, and opened up his views. He wanted my 
aid so far as assisting him in drafting the charter, and undertaking 
its passage through the Legislature. There was no delay, and in a 
short time the gas-light and banking company was chartered, the 
stock taken, and the bank in successful operation. Caldwell, though 
entirely unacquainted with the practical necessities of constructing the 



44^ THE MEMORIES OF 

proper works to complete his plan, went energetically to work to 
acquire this, and did so, and in a few months everything w;vs system- 
atically and economically moving forward to completion. He alone 
conceived, planned, and superintended the whole work. Nor did he 
abate in energy and pei-severance one moment until all was completed. 
.'Vll this while he was a member of the council, and giving his atten- 
tion to many other matters of prime importance to the municipality. 

Peters, Caldwell, and York may justly be Si\id to have been the 
fathei-s of the municipality. To Edward York is justly due the sys- 
tem of public schools, which is so prominent a feature in the institu- 
tions of New Orleans. These three have passed away, and with them 
all who co-operated with them in this enterprise, which has effected 
so much for the city of New Orle;ins. They were unselfish public 
benefactors, and deserve this commemoration. 

.\mong the remarkable men of New Orleans, at this period, was 
Rcrnard Marigny, a scion of the noble stock of the Marigny de 
Mandevilles, of France. His ancestor was one of the early settlers 
of Louisiana, and was a man of great enterprise, and accumulated an 
immense fortune, which descended to Bernard M;uigny. This for- 
time, at the time it came into the hands of Marigny, was estimated 
at four millions. His education w.is sadly neglected in youth ; so 
\\\is his moral training. He was a youth of genius, and proper culti- 
vation would, or might, have made him a m;m of distinguished fame 
and great usefulness. Coming into possession of his immense estate 
immediately upon his majority, with no experience in business mat- 
ters, flushed with youth and fortune, courted by every one, possess- 
ing a brilliant wit, fond to excess of amusements, delighting in play, 
and flattered by every one, he gave up his time almost entirely to 
pleasure. A prominent member of the Legislature for many years, 
he had identifuxi himself with the history of the State, as had his 
ancestor before him. He was the yovnigest member of the conven- 
tion which formed the first Constitution of the State, and w;is the last 
survivor of that memorable body. Soon atter succeeding to his for- 
tune, and when he was by tar the wealthiest man in the State, Louis 
rhili|i]u\ the fugitive son of Louis I^lgalite', Duke of Orleans, came to 
New Orleans, an exile from his native land, at"ter his father had jx'r- 
ished by the guillotine. Marigny received him, and entertained him 
a-s a prince. He gave him splendid apartments in his house, with a 
suite of servants to attend him, and. opening his purse to him, bade 



F 1 !• r ^■ Y E A R s. 449 

him take ad libitum. For some years he remained his guest, indeecl 
until he deemcil it necessary to leave, and when he went, was fur- 
nished with ample means. Long years after, when fortune hail 
abandoned the fortunate, and was smiling upon the unfortunate — 
when the exile was a monarch, and his friend and benefactor was 
needy and poor — when Louis Thilippe was king of France and the 
wealthiest man in Europe, they met again. Their circumstances were 
reversed. Marigny was old and destitute. The monarch waited to 
be importuned, though apprised of his benefactor's necessities and 
(lependence, and answered his ai)peal with a snulT-box, and the i)oor 
old man learned that there was tnitli in tlic maxim, " I'ul not your 
triist in princes." 

Wasteful habits, and the want of economy in every branch of his 
business, wrought for him what it must for every one — "ruin." 
During the discussion in the Legislature upon the bill dividing the 
city into municipalities, Marigny, then a member, exerted himself 
against the bill. He viewed it as the destruction of the property of 
the ancient population in value, and their consetpient impoverish- 
ment, and threw much of his wit and satire at tho.se who were its 
prominent supporters. Among them was Thomas Green Davidson, 
a distinguished member of Congress, (still living, and long may he 
live!) Robert Hale, and myself. Ridicule was Marigny's y<:>rA\ 
Upon the meeting of the House, and before its organization for bus- 
iness, one morning, the writer, at his desk, was a])proached by Alex 
ander Barrow, a member — and who afterward died a member of 
the United States Senate — who read to me a squib which Marigny 
was reading, at the same moment, to a group about him. It read 
thus: 

" Sparks, aiui Thomas Tireen Davidson, 

Rascals tiy nature and profession : 

Dey can bos jjo to licll 

Wid Colonel Hob Hailles." 

I saw that the group would, with Marigny, soon ajjproach me, 
and maile ha.ste to rejily. It was only a day or two before we were 
to adjourn. When they came, and the squib was read, I read the 
tbilowing reply : 

" Dear Maripny, wc 're soon to part, 
So let that parting he in peace: 
38 » 2D 



450 THE MEMORIES OF 

We 've not been angered much in heart. 
But e'en that little soon shall cease. 

" WTien you are sleeping with the dead, 
The spars we've had I'll not forget: 
A wanner heart, or weaker head, 
On earth, I'll own, I never met. 

, "And on your tomb inscribed shall be. 

In letters of your favorite brass, 
Here lies, O Lord! we grieve to see, 
A man in form, in head an ass." 

He arched his brow, and, without speaking, retired. An hour 
after, he came to me, and said : " Suppose you write no more poetry. 
I shall stop. You can call me a villain, a knave, a great rascal : 
every gentleman have dat said about him. Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, 
General Jackson, all have been call so. You can say dat; but I tell 
you, sir, I not like to be call ass." 

He was the aggressor, and, though offended, was too chivalrous to 
qtiarrel. He had fought nineteen duels, and I did not want to quar- 
rel either. 

For many of his latter years he v.-as destitute and iniserable. He 
had seen all his compeers pass away, and he felt that he was in the 
way of a generation who knew nothing of him, or his history, and 
who cared nothing for either. At nearly ninety years of age he died 
in extreme poverty. Nature had done much for Bernard Marigny. 
His mind was of no ordinary stamp. He was a natural orator, 
abounding in humor and wit, and was the life of society. His per- 
son was symmetry itself, about five feet ten inches, and admirably 
proportioned; and, to the day of his death, he was truly a handsome 
man, so symmetrical and well-preserved were his features, and the 
sparkling light in his eyes. He long enjoyed the luxuries of life, and 
lived to lament its follies in indigence and imbecility. 

Of all the Creole population, A. B. Roman was, at this time, the 
most prominent, and the most talented. In very early life he was 
elected Governor of the State, and discharged the duties of the office 
with great ability, and, after Claiborne, widi more satisfaction to the 
people than any man who ever filled the office. The Constitution 
did not admit of his being elected a second time as his own succes- 
sor, but he might be again chosen to fill the chair after the four 



F I F T Y Y E A R S. 45 I 

years' service of another. He was elected to a second term, and 
when it expired, he was chosen president of the draining company, 
in which office he rendered most important services to the city, in 
planning and effecting a system of drainage which relieved the city 
of the immense swamp immediately in its rear. 

In all the relations of life, A. B. Roman was a model — gentle 
and affable in his manners, punctiliously honorable, faithful in all his 
transactions, affectionate and indulgent as a husband and father, kind 
and obliging as a neighbor, faithful to all the duties of a citizen; and 
ambitious to promote the best interests of his native State, he gave 
his time and talents for this purpose, wherever and whenever they 
could be of service. The war, in his old age, left him destitute and 
heart-broken. I had the opportunity of several conversations with 
him, and found him despondent in the extreme. Our last interview 
was the week before his death. 

" In my old age," he said, " I am compelled, for a decent support, 
to accept a petty office — recorder of mortgages — and I feel humili- 
ated. I see no future for me or my people. My days are wellnigh 
over, and I can't say I regret it." 

Only five days after, he fell dead in the street, near his own door. 
A wise and good man went to his God when A. B. Roman died. 
He was one of a large and respectable family, long resident in the 
State, and surely was one of her noblest sons. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

BLOWING UP THE LIONESS. 

Doctor Clapp — Views and Opinions — Universal Destiny — Alkxander 
Barrow — E. D. White — Cross-Breed, Irish RENEf^AOE and Acadian — 
A Heroic Woman — The Ginseng Trade— I-I I'll D-d-die F-f-first. 

DR. CLAPP, so conspicuous in the annals of New Orleans, was 
from New England, and was located in New Orleans as a 
Presbyterian minister, as early as 1824, and about the same period 
that the great and lamented Lamed died. 



45 2 T H L M E M O R I E S O F 

His mind was bold and original, analytical and independent. 
Soon after his location and the commencement of his ministry, he 
gave offence to some of his church, and especially to some of his 
brother pastors, by the enunciation of opinions not deemed orthodox. 

There was at this time preaching at Natchez, one Potts, who was 
a Presbyterian, a Puritan, and extremely straight-laced in doctrine, 
and eminently puritan in practice, intolerant, bigoted, and presump- 
tuous. Potts had accomplished one great aim of his mission: he 
had married a lady of fortune, and assumed more purity than any 
one else, and was a sort of self-constituted exponent of the only true 
doctrines of his church. Arrogant and conceited, he, though a very 
young man, thrust himself forward as a censor, and very soon was in 
controversy with Dr. Clapp. Without a tithe of his talent, or a grain 
of his piety, he assumed to arraign him on the ground of unfaithful- 
ness to the tenets of the church. This controversy was bitter and 
continued. The result was, that Dr. Clapp dissolved connection with 
the Presbyterian Church, and, at the call of the most numerous and 
talented as well as wealthy congregation ever preached to, up to that 
time, in New Orleans, established himself as an independent, and 
continued to preach for many years — indeed, until age and infirmity 
compelled him to retire. 

His peculiar religious opinions were more Unitarian than Presby- 
terian. They consisted of an enlightened philosophy derived from 
natural revelation, which elevated Deity above the passions, preju- 
dices, loves, and hates of mortality. His God was Infinite, All- 
Pervading, and- Perfect. 

The purity of his character, and his wonderful intellect, combined, 
brought around him the most intelligent and moral of the population, 
and his opinions won many converts. He preached and practised a 
rational religion, defined a rigid morality as the basis and main requi- 
site to true piety, and the doing good toward his fellow-man, the 
duty of man toward God. 

The faith he exacted was predicated upon works. . . . That he who 
nad faith in the existence of the soul, and who believed its future 
dependent upon him, should be taught this faith was best exemplified 
by a faithful discharge of all the duties imposed by society and law. 
That he who was pious, was a good husband, father, and friend, a 
good neighbor, an honest, and sincere man, faithful in the discharge 
of all his duties as a citizen and member of society : resting here the 



FIFTY YEARS. 453 

hope of future reward, and not looking to the merits of any other for 
that salvation, which the mind hopes, and the heart craves for all 
eternity; fixing a responsibility individually and indivisibly upon 
each and every one, to earn salvation by discharging temporal duties 
which secure the harmony, well-being, and general love of mankind. 
Any other doctrine, he contended, destroyed man's free agency, and 
discouraged the idea that virtue and goodness were essential to true 
piety. God had created him for an especial mission. His existence 
in time was his chrysalis condition ; to make this as nearly perfect as 
was possible to his nature, he was gifted with mind, passion, and pro- 
pensities — the former to conceive and control the discharge of the 
duties imposed upon him in this state : this done, he perished as to 
time, and awoke prepared for eternity. These ideas were impressed 
with a logic irresistible to the enlightened mind — not clouded with 
the bigotry of fanaticism — and an eloquence so persuasive and sweet 
as to charm tl e heart and kindle it into love. 

He never burned brimstone under the noses of his auditory, nor 
frenzied their imaginations with impassioned appeals to supernatural 
agencies. He expounded the Scriptures as the teachings of men. 
His learning was most profound, especially in the languages. He 
understood thoroughly the Hebrew and Greek. He read from the 
originals the Scriptures, and interpreted them to his hearers, as to 
their meaning in their originals, and disrobed them of the super- 
natural character which an ignorant fanaticism has thrown over them, 
and which time and folly has indurated beyond the possibility of 
learning and science to crack or crush. 

A great original thinker, untrammelled by the schools, and inde- 
pendent of precedents, he saw nature before him, and studied closely 
all her developments. Eminently schooled in the philosophy of 
life, deeply read in the human mind and the heart, he searched for 
all the influences operating its conclusions, and the motives of human 
action : the relations of man to external nature, the connection of 
mind with matter, the origin of things, their design as developed in 
their creation, their connection and dependence, one upon the other, 
and the relation of all to the Creator, and in those the duty of man. 
It was his idea, that, commencing from the humblest, and ascending 
to man, through created nature, the design was manifest that these 
were all, in the animal and the vegetable kingdom, assigned by the 
Creator for man's uses. To him alone, in all these creations, are given 



454 THE MEMORIES OF 

the faculties necessary to a comprehension of the nature of all of 
these, as well as their uses. 

From this fact, so powerfully prominent in all natural developments, 
he viewed man as the most intimate relation of the Creator on this 
globe, and discovering in him no designs beyond the cultivation of 
the great faculty of thought for time, the inference was natural that 
his future was not for time, or time's uses. That all was only fitting 
the soul, which his instincts tell him exists within, when, refined by 
time, and the probation of life, for the independence, and the fruition 
of the sublime designs of God in eternal life, he should ascend to his 
destined sphere, etherialized, and know his Creator and the future of 
his being ; when speculation should cease, and reality and unam- 
biguous truth be made manifest. Of this great truth his mind was so 
fully impressed that all his life was by it governed. His convictions 
were palpable in his conduct, for it was in strict conformity with these 
opinions. The aberrations from virtue and the laws of morals, as 
established by man for the better regulation of his conduct toward 
his fellow-men, he deemed the result of improper education, and 
especially the education of the heart, and the want of the training 
this gives to the natural desires of his organization. That these 
desires, passions, and instincts, are given as essential to his mission in 
time, and those properly educated, trained, and directed, are neces- 
sary to his fulfilment of life's duties, in the perfection of the Creator's 
design, and, when so educated and directed, secure to the individ- 
ual, and to society, the consummation of this design ; but when per- 
verted, become a punishment to both society and the individual, for 
the neglect of a prime duty ; and belong alone to time. Similar 
results he saw from similar causes, in the operations of inanimate 
life. The design of the tree was to grow upward, but an unnatural 
obstacle, in the falling of another, bends it away, and its growth is 
perverted from the original design, yet it grows on and completes 
the cycle of its destiny. 

The stream flows onward, naturally obeying a natural law ; but an 
obstacle interposes and interrupts the design ; still it will go on to 
complete its cycle, obedient to its destiny, though turned from its 
natural channel : and these are the same in the end with those undis- 
turbed in the fulfilment of their designs. All crime or vice is of 
time, and made such by the laws o£ man. The aggregation of men 
into societies or communities necessitate laws to establish moral. 



FIFTY YEARS. 455 

legal, and political duties, and to provide punishments for the 
infraction of these. The right to acquire and possess the fruits of 
labor — the right of free thought — the right to enjoy the natural 
relations of life, and the privileges conferred by society — the right 
to live undisturbed, all are the objects of legal protection ; because 
the attributes of man's nature, unrestrained in the discharge of his 
duties to his fellow-man, will invade these rights, and hence the 
necessity of a universal rule of action. All these attributes are 
susceptible of education as to what is right, and what is wrong; and 
it is the duty of religion to impress upon the mind the importance 
of the one to the security of society, and the evil of the other in its 
effect upon the design of the Creator. This design is harmony and 
love universal, and pervades all nature, where a free will is not 
vouched ; but with this free will is given a capacity to cultivate it 
into that love and harmony, and thus to consummate the great design 
of the Creator. 

He taught, religion was the sublimation of moral thought and 
moral action ; because it was in harmony with nature, and subserved 
the purposes of the Creator — because it brought man into harmony 
with every other creation, whose design was apparent to his capacity 
of understanding — that this design, made manifest to his mind, 
taught him his duty, and it was the province of the teacher to show 
to all this design, and illustrate this harmony. The teacher should 
know before he attempted to teach. He should disabuse his own 
mind of prejudices and superstitions at variance with nature, and 
study natural organization to learn the intention of the Creator ; 
learn the nature of plants, the organization of the earth, its com- 
ponents how formed, and of what — all animal creation — the mech- 
anism of the universe, its motions — the exact perfection of every 
creation for the design of that creation; see and know God's will, 
and God's wisdom, and God's power in all of them ; descend to 
the minor and most infinitesimal creation; learn its organization, and 
see God here with a design, and a perfect organization, to work it out 
— learn truth, where only truth exists, from God in all created nature, 
and teach this, that all may learn and conserve to the same great 
end. 

When comprehended, this planet, with all its creations, was 
designed for man, and to perfect him for the use of God's design. 
These are for consummation in eternity — all that relates to him in 



456 THE MEMORIES OF 

time, but subserves the great end. The relationship to him is appa- 
rent in all that surrounds him on earth. Step by step it comes up to 
him, and all is for his use. At this point, all stops except himself. 
What was his design as manifested in his nature ? Surely, not solely 
to control and appropriate all created matter surrounding him — not 
simply to probate for a period, and pass away. It must be, that he 
is the link perfected in this probation for a higher creation, as a part 
of a more consummate perfection revealed through death. It 
cannot be, that the mind given to him, alone, was only given to 
learn in this combination of elements — earth, air, fire, and water — 
the startling and omnipotent wisdom of the all-wise Creator, and 
then to perish with knowing no more of that God, which this knowl- 
edge has created so consummate a desire to know. 

The cycle of man's destiny is not in time, that of all else is ; and 
that destiny centres in his use, and is complete. If for him there is 
not a future, why were the instincts of his nature given ? Why the 
power to learn so much ? To trace in the planetary system divine 
wisdom, and divine power ; to see and know the same in the mite 
which floats in the sunbeam? If this is all he is ever to know, does 
this complete a destiny for use ? if so, for what ? Can it be, simply 
to propagate his species, and perish? and was all this grand creation 
of the earth, and all things therein, made to subserve him for so mean 
a purpose ? It cannot be. Life is a probation, death the key which 
unlocks the portal through which we pass to the perfection of the 
design of God. 

In these views and opinions Dr. Clapp lived and died. When worn 
out with labor and the ravages of time, he sought to renovate his 
exhausted energies, by removing to a higher latitude, and selected 
Louisville, Kentucky, for his future home. He had seen most of his 
early friends pass into eternity, in the fruition of time, and felt and 
knew it was only a day that his departure for eternity was delayed ; 
yet how calmly and contentedly he awaited the mandate which should 
bid him home ! 

His belief in the universal destiny of man made him universally 
tolerant. His intimates were of every creed, and the harmony exist- 
ing with these and himself made his life beautiful as exemplary. 
With the ministers of every creed he was affectionately social : he 
had no prejudices, cultivated no animosities, and was universally 
charitable. He inculcated his principles by example, encouraged 



FIFTY YEARS. 457 

social communion with all sects, teaching that he whose life is in the 
right cannot be in the wrong. To a very great extent he infused 
his spirit into the people of his adopted city. His most intimate 
associate was that very remarkable Israelite, Judah Luro.Y This 
man was a native of Newport, Rhode Island, and in early life came 
to New Orleans and commenced a small business, to which he gave 
his energetic attention. His means, though small at the beginning, 
were carefully husbanded, and ultimately grew into immense wealth. 
He was exceedingly liberal in his nature, philanthropic, and devoted 
to his friends. On the night of the 2 2d of December, 181 4, he was 
engaged in the battle between the English and American forces, 
near New Orleans, and was severely wounded. In this condition 
he was found, when bleeding profusely from his wounds and 
threatened with speedy death, by a young merchant of the city. 
Resin D. Shepherd, who generously lifted him to his shoulder, after 
stanching his wounds, and bore him, through brambles and mire, in 
the darkness, to a place of security and comfort, some miles distant 
from the scene of the fight. He never lost sight of this friend. 
When he came to die, he made him executor to his will, and 
residuary legatee, after disposing of some half a million of money 
in other legacies. These were all immediately paid by Mr. Shepherd, 
who entered upon the possession of all the property the deceased died 
possessed of — consequently, the extent of his fortune was never pub- 
licly known. 

This man built upon his own property, on Gravier Street, fronting 
St. Charles, and immediately across Gravier Street from the St. 
Charles Hotel, a church for Dr. Clapp, in which his congregation 
worshipped for many years. When the hotel was built, and busi- 
ness began crowding around this locality, it became necessary to 
remove his church. Again, Mr. Luro .built for him a church, in a 
more private and eligible position, on the corner of Julia and St. 
Charles streets, and donated it to the pastor and congregation of 
the Gravier-Street Church. Here Mr. Clapp continued his ministry 
during the remaining time of his residence in New Orleans. 

He found with the cultivated and intelligent of New Orleans an 
approval of his teachings and example. The consequence was, and 
is, the entire absence of sectarian dissensions, and a social intercourse 
between all, resulting in a united effort for the common good, and the 



458 THE MEMORIES OF 

maintenance of moral sentiments and moral conduct — the basis and 
source of true and triumphant religion. 

"The deeds that men do, live after them." Of no man can this be 
more truly said than of Dr. Clapp. Through every phase of society 
his example and teachings continue to live ; and every virtuous and 
intelligent man in the community of Dr. Clapp's ministry, in New 
Orleans, conspires to continue the effect of them. 

In no community on earth is there a greater diversity of nation- 
alities, than in that of New Orleans, where every sect of religion- 
ists is to be found. All pursue the worship of God after their own 
manner of belief, exciting no jealousies, heart-burnings, or hatreds. 
All agree that a common end is the aim of all, and that a common 
destiny awaits mankind. 

In the pursuits of life, and the duties of time, nothing of religious 
intolerance enters. A man's opinions upon that subject are his own, 
and for these he is responsible to God only. His neighbor respects 
his prejudices and feelings, and appreciates him according to his 
conduct toward his fellow-man, and the discharge of his duties to 
society. 

Good follows the honest discharge of the duties of his vocation, 
from every moral and religious teacher, if he is sincere and earnest, 
whether Jew or Christian. An intelligent and virtuous community 
appreciates this, and encourages such efforts as advance and sustain 
public morals and social harmony. How such a man is esteemed in 
New Orleans, a recent instance is ample illustration. A distinguished 
Jewish Rabbi, long a resident minister of his faith in that city, was 
called to minister in a synagogue in the city of New York. His 
walk and his work had been upright and useful. The good' of all 
denominations were unwilling to give up so good and so useful a 
man. In the true spirit of pure religion, a large committee, ap- 
pointed by a meeting of the citizens from among every sect, com- 
posed of the leading and most influential men of the city, waited 
upon him, and influenced him to remain among them, and continue 
his vocation and pious usefulness in the field where he had labored so 
long and so efficiently. 

To the teachings of Dr. Clapp, much of this toleration is due. 
This tone of feeling is the offspring of enlightenment, the enemy of 
bigotry. His mission completed, he retired for health and quiet to 
a point from which he could contemplate the results of his labors. 



FIFTY YEARS. 459 

He saw that they were good, and felt his whole duty had been 
done. In the fulness of years he awaited the coming of the hour 
when, released from his prison-house and freed from earth, he 
should go to his reward. It can\e, and ere the spirit was plumed for 
its final flight, he asked that its wornout casket should be carried 
and deposited by those he loved in life, in the city of his adoption 
and love ; where, in death, the broken community of life should be 
restored. This was done, and now with them he sleeps well. 

Memory turns sadly back to many, now no more, who were com- 
peers of Dr. Clapp, and to New Orleans, as New Orleans was ; but 
to none with more melancholy pleasure than to Alexander Barrow 
and E. D. White. These were both natives of the city of Nash- 
ville, Tennessee. Both came to New Orleans in early life : White, 
with his father when a child, and Barrow, when a young man. 
White was left an orphan when quite young, in Attakapas, where his 
father lived, and with very limited means. He struggled on in the 
midst of a people whose very language was alien to his own, and 
managed to acquire a limited education, with which he commenced 
the study of the law, the profession of his father. When admitted 
to practice, he located at Donaldsonville, in the Parish of Ascension, 
where he rose rapidly to distinction. Appointed subsequently to a 
judgeship in New Orleans, he removed there to reside. This appoint- 
ment he did not continue to hold for any length of time, his popu- 
larity being such as to point him out as a fit person to contest with 
Mr. Livingston the seat in Congress then filled by the latter. In 
this contest he was successful, and continued to represent the district 
until he was chosen Governor. He filled this chair for the consti- 
tutional period of four years, and immediately upon the expiration 
of his term, he was again elected to Congress. He continued to 
represent the district until the treachery of a family, numerous and 
ignorant, yet influential with their ignorant, uneducated neighbors, 
caused him to be beaten. They succeeded subsequently in placing 
one of their family in his place, only to show the triumph of folly 
and stupidity over worth and intelligence. Yet this cross of an Irish 
renegade upon an Acadian woman was a fit representative of a large 
majority of his constituents. 

The climate of Washington operated injuriously upon his consti- 
tution. Long accustomed to that of Louisiana, it failed to resist the 
terrible winter -climate of Washington, and he found his health 



460 THE MEMORIES OF 

broken. He returned to' his plantation, on the Bayou La Fourche, 
where he lingered for a year or more, and died, in the meridian of 
life, leaving a young and interesting family. 

Governor White was a man of great eccentricity of character, but 
with a ripe intellect, and a heart overflowing with generous emotions 
and tenderness. He loved his kind, and his life was most unselfishly 
devoted to their service. Like all who have for any time made her 
their home, he loved Louisiana first of all things. He was too young 
when coming from his native land to remember it, and his first 
attachment was for the soil of his adoption. He was reared in the 
midst of the Creole population of the State ; spoke French and 
Spanish as his mother-tongue, and possessed the confidence and affec- 
tion of these people in a most remarkable degree. 

Governor White was a passenger on board the ill-fated steamer 
Lioness, in company with many friends, among whom were Josiah 
S. Johnston, (the elder brother of A. Sidney Johnston, who fell at the 
battle of Shiloh,) and Judge Boyce, of the District Court. Josiah S. 
Johnston was, at the time, a Senator in Congress. Some miles above 
the mouth of Red River, and in that stream, the boat blew up, 
many of the passengers being killed, among whom was Judge John- 
ston. Governor White was terribly burned, and by many it was 
thought this led to his death. His disease was bronchitis, which 
supervened soon after this terrible disaster. The steamer had in her 
hold considerable powder. This, it was said at the time, was ignited 
by the mate of the boat, who had become enraged from some cause 
with the captain. The body of Judge Johnston was never found. 
The boat was blown to atoms, with the exception of the floor of the 
ladies' cabin. The upper works were all demolished. This floor 
was thrown, it seemed almost miraculously, intact upon the water. 
There were some six or eight ladies on board, who were saved on 
this floor. When the smoke had lifted sufficiently to permit a night 
view — for it was night — Governor White and Judge Boyce were 
seen swimming near this floor of the wreck. White was burned ter- 
ribly in the face and on the hands, and was blinded by this burning. 
The ladies were in their night-clothes ; but what will not woman do 
to aid the distressed, especially in the hour of peril ? One of the 
most accomplished ladies of the State snatched from her person her 
robe de chavibre, and, throwing one end to the struggling Governor, 
called to him to reach for it, and with it pulled him to the wreck. 



FIFTY YEARS. 46 1 

and kindly, with the aid of others, lifted him on. The same kind 
office was performed for Boyce, and they were saved. Though a 
stranger to the Governor, this great-hearted woman tore into strips 
her gown, and kindly did the work of the Good Samaritan, in bind- 
ing up the wounds of one she did not know, had never before seen, 
and to whose rank and character she was equally a stranger ; and 
when she was floating upon a few planks, at the mercy of the waters, 
and surrounded by interminable forests covering the low and mucky 
shores of Red River for many miles, where human foot had rarely 
trod, and human habitation may never rest — one garment her only 
covering, and all she could hope for, until some passing steamer 
should chance to rescue them, or until she should float to the river's 
mouth, and find a human habitation. She, too, is in the grave, but 
the memory of this act embalms her in the hearts of all who knew 
her. Blessed one ! — for surely she who blessed all who came within 
her sphere, and only lived to do good, must in eternity and for eter- 
nity be blest, like thousands of others who have ministered in 
kindness for a day, and then went to the grave — in thy youth and 
loveliness thou wert exhaled from earth: like a storm-stricken flower 
in the morning of its bloom, wilted and dead, the fragrance of thy 
virtues is the incense of thy memory ! 

It was long before Governor White was fully restored to sight. 
No public man, and especially one so long in public life, ever 
enjoyed more fully the confidence of his constituents than Edward 
Douglass White. His private character was never impeached, even 
in the midst of the most excited political contests, nor did the breath 
of slander ever breathe upon his fair fame, from his childhood to the 
grave. 

I am incompetent to write of Alexander Barrow as his merits 
deserve. In him all that was noble and all that was respectable wa.s 
most happily combined. A noble and commanding person, a manly 
and intellectual face, an eye that bespoke his heart, a soul that soared 
in every relation of life above everything that was little or selfish, a 
ripe and accurate judgment, a purpose always honorable and always 
open, without concealment or deceit, and an integrity pure and 
unsullied as the ether he breathed, an an"ectionate father, a devoted 
husband, a firm and unflinching friend through every phase of for- 
tune — in fine, every element which makes a man united in Alexan- 
der Barrow. Dear reader, if I seem extravagant in these words, 
39* 



462 THE MEMORIES OF 

pardon it to me. When seventy winters have passed over your head, 
and you turn back your memory upon all that has passed, recall- 
ing the incidents and the friends of life, and you remember those 
which have transpired with him you loved best and trusted most, and 
remember that he was always true, never capricious, always wise, 
never foolish, always sincere, never equivocal, and who never failed 
you in the darkest hours of adversity, but was always the same to 
you in kindness, forbearance, and devotion, remember such was ever 
to me Alexander Barrow, and forgive this wild outpouring of the 
heart to the virtues. of the friend, tried so long, and loved so well. 
For more than twenty years he has been in his grave ; but in all that 
time no day has ever passed that Alick has not stood before me as he 
was when we were young and life was full of hope. His blood with 
mine mingles in the veins of our grandchildren. O God ! I would 
there were nothing to make this a painful memory. 

Barrow served some years in the Legislature of the State, and was 
thence transferred to the United States Senate, where, after a service 
of six years, he died, in the prime of his manhood. Those who 
remember the speech of Hannegan, and the attempt of Crittenden, 
who, under the deep sorrow of his heart, sank voiceless and in tears 
to his chair — the feeling which filled and moved the Senate when 
paying the last tribute to his dead body, coffined and there before 
^them in the Senate chamber — may know how those estimated the 
man who knew him best. Friend of my heart, farewell ! We soon 
shall meet, with vernal youth restored, to endure forever. 

There was another, Walter Brashear, our intimate friend for long 
years. He went to eternity after a pilgrimage of eighty-eight years 
in the sunshine and shadows of this miserable world. He was a 
native of the city of Philadelphia, but with his parents went to Ken- 
tucky, when a boy. These soon died, and Walter was left an orphan 
and poor, then but a boy. After attending a common neighborhood 
school in the County of Fayette, near Lexington, one year, he found 
it necessary to find support in some employment. Walking the streets 
of Lexington in search of this, the breeze blew to his feet a fragment 
of newspaper, which he picked up and read from curiosity. Here he 
found an advertisement inviting those who had ginseng for sale, to 
call. He knew there was plenty of this root to be found in portions 
of Kentucky, and determined immediately to embark in the specu- 
lation of searching for it and sending it to Philadelphia. He labored 



FIFTY YEARS. 463 

assiduously, and soon had acquired a considerable sum of money for 
those times, 1801, He employed several hands to assist him the 
ensuing season, and after forwarding the root collected, found there 
was no longer any market for it in Philadelphia. Suspecting the person 
to whom he had previously sold was deceiving him, in order to drive 
a profitable bargain with him, he determined to go himself with his 
venture to China. This he did, and, making so handsome a business 
of it, he returned and immediately went to work to procure a much 
larger amount for another venture. This he likewise accomplished, 
but was less fortunate than before, though he made some money. He 
was now twenty-one years of age, and had been twice to China; but 
had not contracted much love for commerce or voyaging upon the 
sea. He married soon after his return, read medicine, and com- 
menced the practice of it in Kentucky. Forming an intimacy with 
Mr. Clay, they soon became close friends, being nearly of the same 
age, and very like in character. After some years' residence in Ken- 
tucky as a physician, he determined on emigrating to Louisiana, and 
embarking in the business of sugar-planting. Purchasing Belle Isle, 
an island off the coast of Attakapas, he removed his family there about 
1824. He was successful in his new vocation; but not liking an 
island residence, where he was twenty miles from a neighbor, he 
purchased a residence upon Berwick's Bay, and a portion of Tiger 
Island, which was immediately opposite, and there made a new plan- 
tation, which is now the site of Brashear City. At this place he lies 
buried, by his children, all of whom, save one daughter, are there 
with him. 

For many years he was a member of the Legislature of the State of 
his adoption, an honest and efficient one, of fine abilities, and great 
will. He usually triumphed in what he undertook. His fine social 
qualities attached to him many friends. His devotion to them was 
unflinching, and he rather preferred to fight for these than play with 
any others. His courage was truly chivalrous, and he is remembered 
by all who knew him, and yet live, as the man who never felt the 
sensation of fear. 

An unfortunate difficulty with a neighbor. Dr. Tolls, brought on a 
personal rencontre. His antagonist was known to be brave and phys- 
ically powerful ; but in this affair, Brashear, after receiving a number 
of blows, wrested away his enemy's cane, and would soon have had 
the belter of the fight, but persons interposing prevented it. 



464 THE MEMORIES OF 

"Doctor," said Brashear, "this is not the way for gentlemen to 
settle their difficulties. As soon as I can bind up my head, which you 
have battered pretty severely, I shall be in the street armed. If you 
are as brave a man as your friends claim you to be, you will meet me 
there prepared to fight me as a gentleman." 

"In forty minutes from this time, if you please," said his enemy. 

At the appointed time and place they met, each with his friend; 
and each armed. When they had approached within ten paces, Bra- 
shear stopped and said, "Are you ready? " Being answered in the 
affirmative, " Then fire, sir; I scorn to take the first fire." Dr. Tolls 
did so, and, missing him, stood and received Brashear's ball through 
both thighs, and fell. There was no surgeon in town, and the wounds 
were bleeding profusely, when Brashear went to him, and proposed 
to dress the wounds. Tolls stuttered badly, and replied, "I-I-I'U 
d-d -die first." "I can do no more," said Brashear, and, bowing, 
left the ground. 

This chivalry of character characterized him in everything. Fond 
of amusement, he indulged himself in hunting and innocent sports, 
when and where he was always the life of the party. Energetic and 
restless in his nature, he could not bear confinement, and, when a 
member of the Legislature, he was more frequently to be found walk- 
ing rapidly to and fro in the lobby of the House than in his seat. To 
sit still and do nothing was impossible to him. A hundred anec- 
dotes might be related of him, all illustrative of his lofty courage, and 
daring, and his utter contempt of danger. A noble and generous 
spirit was ever manifested by him, in every relation of life. His 
frankness and liberal hospitality, his kindness to his slaves, and his 
generosity to the poor, endeared him to his neighbors, who live to 
feel that his void can never be filled. 



FIFTY YEARS.. 465 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF THE RED MAN. 

Line Creek Fifty Years Ago — Hopothlayohola — McIntosh — Undyino 
Hatred — A Big Powwow — Massacre of the McIntosiies — Nehe- 

MATHLA — OnCHEES — THE LaST OF THE RaCE — A BrAVE WaRRIOR — A 

White Man's Friendship — The Death-Song — Tuskega, or Jim's Boy. 

I HAVE been to-day, the 23d of August, over the same spot I wan- 
dered over this day fifty years ago. What changes have super- 
vened it is difficult to realize. This was then a dense, unsettled wil- 
derness. The wild deer was on every hill, in every valley. Limpid 
streams purled rippling and gladly along pebbly beds, and fell bab- 
bling over great rocks. These alone disturbed the profound silence, 
where solitude brooded, and quiet was at home. These wild forests ex- 
tended west to Line Creek, then the dividing line between the Indian 
possessions and the newly acquired territory now constituting the 
State of Alabama. Upon this territory of untamed wilderness there 
wandered then fifty thousand Indians, the remnant of the mighty 
nation of Muscogees, who one hundred and thirty years ago welcomed 
the white man at Yamacrow, now Savannah, and tendered him a home 
in the New World. Fifty years ago he had progressed to the banks 
of the Ocmulgee, driving before him the aboriginal inhabitant, and 
appropriating his domains. H^re for a time his march was stayed. 
But the Indian had gone forward to meet the white man coming 
from the Mississippi to surround him, the more surely to effect his 
ultimate destruction and give his home and acres to the enterprise 
and capacity of the white man. 

Wandering through these wilds fifty years ago, I did not deem this 
end would be so soon accomplished. Here now is the city and the 
village, the farm-house and extended fields, the railroads and high- 
ways, and hundreds of thousands of busy men who had not then a 
being. The appurtenances of civilization everywhere greet you : 
many of these are worn and mossed over with the lapse of time and 
appear tired of the weight of wasting years. The red men, away in 
the West, have dwindled to a mere handful, still flying before the 
white man, and shrinking away from his hated civilization. 

2E 



466 THE MEMORIES OF 

Is this cruel and sinful — or the silent, mysterious operation of the 
laws of nature ? One people succeeds another, as day comes after 
day, and years follow years. Upon this continent the Indian found 
the evidences in abundance of a preceding people, the monuments 
of whose existence he disregards, but which, in the earth-mounds 
rising up over all the land, arrest the white man's attention and 
wonder. He inquires of the Indian inhabitant he is expelling from 
the country. Who was the architect of these, and what their sig- 
nification? and is answered: We have no tradition which tells; 
our people found them when they came, as you find them to-day. 
These traditions give the history of the nations now here, and we 
find in every Southern tribe that they tell of an immigration from 
the southwest. 

The Muscogee, Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, all have the 
history of their flying from beyond the Mississippi, and from the 
persecutions of superior and more warlike nations, and resting here 
for security, where they found none to molest them, and only these 
dumb evidences of another people, who once filled the land, but had 
passed away. 

When the white man came, he found but one race upon the two 
continents. Their type was the same and universal, and only these 
mounds to witness of a former race. Ethnology has discovered no 
other. All the remains of man indicate the same type, and there 
remains not a fossil to record the existence of those who reared these 
earth-books, which speak so eloquently of a race passed away. 

How rapidly the work of demolition goes on ! Will a century 
hence find one of the red race upon this continent? Certainly not, 
if it shall accomplish so much as the century past. There is not one 
for every ten, then; and the tenth remaining are now surrounded on 
all sides, and, being pushed to the centre, must perish. 

They are by nature incapable of that civilization which would 
enable them to organize governments and teach the science of agri- 
culture. They were formed for the woods, and physically organized 
to live on flesh. The animals furnishing this were placed with 
them here, and the only vegetable found with them was the maize, 
or Indian corn. The white man was organized to feed on vegeta- 
bles, and they were placed with him in his centre of creation, and 
he brought them here, and with himself acclimated them, as a neces- 
sity to his existence in America. 



FIFTY YEARS. 467 

No effort can save the red man from extermination that humanity 
or Christianity may suggest. When deprived of his natural food 
furnished by the forest, he knows not nor can he be taught the 
means of supplying the want. The capacities of his brain will not 
admit of the cultivation necessary to that end. And as he has done 
in the presence of civilization, he will know none of its arts ; and 
receiving or commanding none of its results, he will wilt and die. 

Here, on the very spot where I am writing, is evidence in abun- 
dance of the facts here stated. Every effort to civilize and make the 
nomadic Indian a cultivator of the earth — here has been tried, and 
within my memory. Missionary establishments were here, schools, 
churches, fields, implements, example and its blessings, all without 
effect. Nothing now remains to tell of these efforts but a few misera- 
ble ruins; nothing in any change of character or condition of the 
Indian. And here, where fifty years ago, with me, he hunted the 
red deer and wild turkey for the meat of his family and the clothing 
of himself and offspring — to-day he would be a curiosity, and one 
never seen by half the population which appropriates and cultivates 
the soil over which he wandered in the chase. His beautiful woods 
are gone ; the green corn grows where the green trees grew, and the 
bruised and torn face of his mother earth muddies to disgust, with her 
clay-freighted tears, the limpid streams by which he sat down to rest, 
and from which he drank to quench his thirst from weariness earned 
in his hunt for wild game, which grew with him, and grew for him, 
as nature's provision. The deer and the Indian are gone. The 
church-steeple points to heaven where the wigwam stood, and the 
mart of commerce covers over all the space where the camp-fires 
burned. The quarrels of Hopothlayohola and Mcintosh are his- 
tory now, and the great tragedy of its conclusion in the death of 
Mcintosh is now scarcely remembered. 

True to his hatred of the Georgians, Hopothlayohola, in the recent 
war, away beyond the Mississippi, arrayed his warriors in hostility to 
the Confederacy, and, when numbering nearly one hundred winters, 
led them to battle in Arkansas, against the name of his hereditary 
foe, and hereditary hate — Mcintosh ; and by that officer, com- 
manding the Confederate troops, was defeated, and his followers 
dispersed. Since that time, nothing has been known of the fate of 
the old warrior-chief. 

It had been agreed between the United States and Georgia, and 



468 THE MEMORIES OF 

the famous Yazoo Company, in order to settle the difficulties between 
the two latter, that the United States should purchase, at a proper 
time, from the Indian proprietors, all the lands east of the Chatta- 
hoochee and a line running from the west bank of that stream, 
starting at a place known as West Point, and terminating at what is 
known as Nickey Jack, on the Tennessee River. The increase of 
population, and the constant difficulties growing out of the too close 
neighborhood of the Indians, induced the completion of this agree- 
ment. Commissioners on the part of the Government were appointed 
to meet commissioners or delegations from the Indians, to treat for 
the sale of their lands within the limits of the State of Georgia. 
Mcintosh favored the sale, Hopothlayohola opposed it. As a chief, 
Mcintosh was second to his great antagonist in authority, and, in 
truth, to several other chiefs. But he was a bold man, with strong 
will, fearless and aggressive, and he assumed the power to sell. In 
the war of 181 2-15, he had sided with the Americans, Hopothlayo- 
hola with the English ; and leading at least half the tribe, Mcintosh 
felt himself able to sustain his authority. The commissioners met 
the Indian delegation at the Indian Springs, where negotiations were 
commenced by a proposition placed before the chiefs, and some 
days given for their consideration of it. Their talks or consulta- 
tions among themselves were protracted and angry, and inconclusive. 
Every effort was made to induce Hopothlayohola to accede to the 
proposition of Mcintosh. The whites united in their efforts to win 
his consent to sell : persuasions, threats, and finally large bribes were 
offered, but all availed nothing. Thus distracted and divided, they 
consumed the time for consultation, and met the white commissioners 
to renew the strife, in open council with these. Each chief was fol- 
lowed to this council by the members of his band, sub-chiefs, and 
warriors. Mcintosh announced his readiness to sell, and sustained 
his position with reasons which demonstrated him a statesman, and 
wise beyond his people. 

"Here in the neighborhood of the whites," he said, "we are sub- 
ject to continual annoyance and wrong. These have continued long, 
and they have dwarfed our mighty nation to a tribe or two, and our 
home to one-tenth of its original dimensions. This must go on if we 
remain in this proximity, until we shall be lost, and there will be 
none to preserve our traditions. Let us sell our lands, and go to the 
proffered home beyond the Great River. Our young men have been 



FIFTY YEARS. 469 

there: they have seen it, and they say it is good. The game is 
abundant; the lands are broad, and there is no sickness there." 
Turning to Hopothlayohola, who stood, with dignified and proud 
defiance in his manner, listening, he proceeded: "Will you go and 
live with your people increasing and happy about you: or will you 
stay and die with them here, and leave no one to follow you, or come 
to your grave, and weep over their great chief? Beyond the Great 
River the sun is as bright, and the sky is as blue, and the waters are 
as clear and as sweet as they are here. Our people will go with us. 
We will be one, and where we are altogether, there is home. To 
love the ground is mean ; to love our people is noble. We will cling 
to them — we will do for their good ; and the ground where they are 
will be as dear to us as this, because they will be upon it, and with us. 
" The white man is growing. He wants our lands. He will biiy 
them now. By and by he will take them, and the little band of our 
people left will wander without homes, poor and despised, and be 
beaten like dogs. We must go to a new -home, and learn like the 
white man to till the earth, grow cattle, and depend on these for 
food and life. Nohow else can many people live on the earth. 
This makes the white man like the leaves ; the want of it makes the 
red men weak and few. Let us learn how to make books, how to 
make ploughs, and how to cultivate the ground, as the white man 
does, and we will grow again, and again become a great people. 
We will unite with the Cherokee, the Choctaw, and the Seminole, 
and be one people. The Great Spirit made us one people. Yes, 
we are all the children of one family : we are the red men of the 
Great Spirit, and should be one people for strength and protection. 
We shall have school's for our children. Each tribe shall have its 
council, and all shall unite in great council. They will be wise 
through learning as the white man is, and we shall become a great 
State, and send our chiefs to Congress as the white man does. We 
shall all read, and thus talk, as the white man does, with the mighty 
dead who live in books*; and write and make books that our chil- 
dren's children shall read and talk with* and learn the counsels of 
their great fathers in the spirit-land. This it is which makes the 
white man increase and spread over the land. In our new home he 
promises to protect us — to send us schools and books, and teach our 
children to know them ; and he will send us ploughs, and men to 
make them, and to teach our young men how to make them. 
40 



470 THE MEMORIES OF 

"The plough will make us corn for bread, for the strength of the 
body ; the books will be food for the head, to make us wise and 
strong in council. Let us sell and go away, and if we suffer for a 
time, it will be better for our children. You see it so with the white 
man ; shall we not learn from him, and be like him? " 

When he had concluded his talk, it was greeted in their own 
peculiar manner by his followers as good. Hopothlayohola, the 
great red chief, turning from Mcintosh as if disdaining him, address- 
ed the commissioners of the Government: 

"Our great father, your head chief at Washington, sent us a talk 
by you, which is pleasant to hear, because it promises the red man 
much — his friendship, his protection, and his help ; but in return for 
this he asks of us much more than we are willing to give even for all 
his promises. The white man's promises, like him, are white, and 
bring hope to the red man ; but they always end in darkness and 
death to him. 

" The Great Spirit has not given to the red man, as He has to the 
white man, the power to look into the dark, and see what to-morrow 
has in its hand ; but He has given him the sense to know what expe- 
rience teaches him. Look around, and remember! Away when 
time was young, all this broad lan^ was the red man's, and there 
was none to make him afraid. The woods were wide and wild, and 
the red deer, and the bear, and the wild turkey were everywhere, 
and all were his. He was great, and, with abundance, was happy. 
From the salt sea to the Great River the land was his : the Great 
Spirit had given it to him. He made the woods for the red man, 
the deer, the bear, and the turkey ; and for these He made the red 
man. He made the white man for the fields, and taught him how 
to make ploughs, to have cattle and horses, and how to make books, 
because the white man needed these. He did not make these a 
necessity to the red man. 

"Away beyond the mighty waters of the dreary sea, He gave the 
white man a home, with everything he waiAed, and He gave him a 
mind which was for him, and only him. The red man is satisfied 
with the gifts to him of the Great Spirit; and he did not know there 
was a white man who had other gifts for his different nature, until he 
came in his winged canoes across the great water, and our fathers 
met him at Yamacrow. The Great Spirit gave him a country, and 
He gave the red man a country. Why did he leave his own and 



FIFTYYEARS. 47 1 

come to take the red man's? Did the Great Spirit tell him to do 
this? He gave him His word in a book: do you find it there? 
Then read it for us, that we may hear. If He did, then He is not 
just. We see Him in the sun, and moon, and stars. We hear Him 
in the thunder, and feel Him in the mighty winds; but He made 
no book for the red man to tell Him his will, but we see in all His 
works justice. The sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the ground 
keep their places, and never leave them to crowd upon one another. 
They stay where He placed them, and come not to trouble or to take 
from one another what He had given. Only the white man does 
this, A few — a little handful — came in their canoe to the land of 
the red man, as spirits come out of the water. The red man gave 
them his hand. He gave them meat, and corn, and a home, and 
welcomed them to come and live with him. And the flying canoes 
came again and again, and many came in them, and at last they 
brought their great chief, with his long knife by his sicfe, and his red 
coat, and he asked for more land. Our chiefs and warriors met him, 
and sold him another portion of our lands ; and his white squaws 
came with him, and they made houses and homes near our people. 
They made fields, and had horses and herds, and grew faster than our 
people, and drove away the deer and the turkeys deeper into the 
woods. And then they wanted more land, and our chiefs and war- 
riors sold them more land, and now again another piece, until now 
we have but a little of our all. And you come again with the same 
story on your forked tongues, and wish to buy the last we have of 
all we had, and offer us a home away beyond the Great River, and 
money, and tell us we shall there have a home forever, free from the 
white man's claims, and in which we shall dwell in peace, with no 
one to make us afraid. 

" Our traditions tell us that our fathers fled before the powerful red 
men who dwell beyond the Great River, and who robbed us of our 
homes and made them their own, as you, the white men, have done. 
Have you bought the home of our fathers from these red men ? or 
have you taken it ? that you bid us take it from you, and go back, 
and make a new home where the fathers of our fathers sleep in death? 
If you have not, will they not hunt us away again, as you have? How 
shall we know you will not come and make us sell to you, for the 
white man, the homes you promise shall always be ours and a home 
for our children's children? 



472 THE MEMORIES OF 

"We love the land where we were born and where we have buried 
our fathers and our kindred. It is the Great Spirit which teaches us 
to love the land, the wigwam, the stream, the trees where we hunted 
and played from our childhood, where we have buried out of sight 
our ancestors for generations. Who says it is mean to love the land, 
to keep in our hearts these graves, as we keep the Great Spirit? It is 
noble to love the land, where the corn grows, and wliich was given to 
us by the Great Spirit. We will sell no more ; we know we are passing 
away; the leaves fall from the trees, and we fall like these ; some will 
stay to be the last. The snow melts from the hills, but there is some 
left for the last ; we are left for the last, like the withered leaf and little 
spot of snow. Leave to us the little we have, let us die where our 
fathers have died, and let us sleep where our kindred sleep ; and when 
the last is gone, then take our lands, and with your plough tear up 
the mould upon our graves, and plant your corn above us. There 
will be none to weep at the deed, none to tell the traditions of our 
people, or sing the death-song above their graves — none to listen to 
the wrongs and oppressions the red man bore from his white brother, 
who came from the home the Great Spirit gave him, to take from the 
red man the home the Great Spirit gave him. We are few and weak, 
you are many and strong, and you can kill us and take our homes ; 
but the Great Spirit has given us courage to fight for our homes, if we 
may not live in them — and we will do it — and this is our talk, our 
last talk." 

He folded back the blanket he had thrown from his shoulders, and, 
followed by his band, he stalked majestically away. They had broken 
up their camp and returned to their homes upon the Tallapoosa. 

Unawed by the defection of the Tuscahatchees, the band attached 
to Hopothlayohola, Mcintosh went on to complete the treaty. This 
chief, because he had been the friend of the United States in the then 
recent war, assumed to be the principal chief of the nation, as he 
held the commission of a brigadier-general from the United States; 
a commission, however, which only gave him command with his own 
people. This assumption was denied by Hopothlayohola, chief of 
the Tuscahatchees, Tuskega, and other chiefs of the nation, who 
insisted upon the ancient usages, and the power attaching through 
these to the recognized head-chief of the nation. Strong representa- 
tions and protests against the treaty were .sent to Washington, and 
serious complications were threatened, very nearly producing colli- 



FIFTY YEARS. 473 

sion between the State of Georgia and the General Government. The 
hostility to Mcintosh and his party culminated in a conspiracy for his 
assassination. Fifty warriors were selected, headed by a chief for the 
purpose. These received their orders, which were that on a day 
designated they should concentrate at a given spot, and at night pro- 
ceed to the house of Mcintosh, in secret, and surrounding it at or 
near daylight, call him up, and as he came forth, all were to fire 
upon him. His brother, his son, and son-in-law, Rolla and Chillie 
Mcintosh, and Hawkins, were all doomed to die, and by the hands 
of this executory band. That there might be no mistake as to the 
day, each warrior was furnished with a bundle of sticks of wood, 
each of these represented a day — the whole, the number of days in- 
tervening between the time of receiving them, and the day of execu- 
tion. Every night upon the going down of the sun one of these was 
to be thrown away — the last one, on the night of concentration and 
assassination. It was death to betray the trust reposed, or to be 
absent from the»point of rendezvous at the time appointed. 

The secret was faithfully kept — every one was present. The house 
of Mcintosh stood immediately upon the bank of the Chattahoochee 
River, at the point or place now known as Mcintosh's Reserve. It 
was approached and surrounded under the cover of night, and so 
stealthily as to give no warning even to the watch-dogs. Mcintosh 
and his son Chillie were the only victims in the house, the two others 
were away. Hawkins was at his own home, Rolla Mcintosh no one 
knew where. Hopothlayohola had accompanied this band, but not 
in the character of chief. The command was delegated to another. 
This chief knocked at the door, and commanded Mcintosh to come 
out and meet his doom. The Reverend Francis Flornoy, a Baptist 
preacher, was spending the night with the chief, and was in a room 
with Chillie. The chief Mcintosh knew his fate, and, repairing to the 
apartment of his guest and son, told them he was about to die, and 
directing his son to escape from the rear of the house, and across the 
river, said he would meet his fate as a warrior. Taking his rifle, he 
went to the front door, and throwing it open, fired upon the array 
of warriors as he gave the war-whoop, and, in an instant after, fell 
dead, pierced with twenty balls. Chillie, at this moment, sprang 
from the window, leaped into the river, and made his escape, though 
fired at repeatedly. A detachment was immediately sent to execute 
Hawkins at his home, which was successful in ejecting it. 
40* 



474 THE MEMORIES OF 

Soon after this tragic occurrence, the Mcintosh party, consisting of 
fully one-half the nation, emigrated to the lands granted them west 
of the State of Arkansas, and made there a home. The remainder 
of the Creeks retired to the district of country between the Chattahoo- 
chee and Line Creek, only to learn that to remain upon this circum 
scribed territory was certain destruction. 

The whites soon populated the acquired territory, and the Chatta- 
hoochee was no barrier to their aggressions upon the helpless Indian 
beyond. Feuds grew up : this led to killings, and in the winter of 
1835-6 active hostilities commenced. This war was of short dura- 
tion. Before the nation was divided, Hopothlayohola was opposed 
to war. In his communication with General Jessup, he told him : 
"My strength is gone; my warriors are few, and I am opposed to 
war. But had I the men, I would fight you. I am your enemy — I 
shall ever be ; but to fight you would only be the destruction of my 
people. We are in your power, and you can do with us as you will." 
But the chiefs of the lower towns would not yield, and made the 
fight. In a short time this was concluded by the capture of their 
leading chief, Nehemathla. He was decoyed by treachery into the 
power of General Jessup, who detained him as a prisoner, and 
almost immediately his band surrendered. 

Nehemathla was an Onchee chief. This was the remnant of a 
tribe absorbed into the nation of the Creeks or Muscogees, and was 
probably one of those inferior bands inhabiting the land when this 
nation came from the West and took possession of the country. 
Their language they preserved, and it is remarkable it was never 
acquired by white or red man, unless he was reared from infancy 
among the tribe. It was guttural entirely, and spoken with the 
mouth open, and no word or sound ever required it to be closed for 
its pronunciation. They had dwindled to a handful at the time of 
his capture, but more obstinately determined to remain and die upon 
their parental domain, than any other portion of the nation. 

Nehemathla was more than eighty years of age at the time of his 
capture. When brought into the presence of General Jessup, he ex- 
pected nothing short of death. The General told him of his crimes, 
upbraided him with bad faith to his great father, General Jackson, 
and drawing his sword, told him he deserved to die. 

The chief, seeing the sword lifted, snatched the turban from his 
head, and fiercely and defiantly looking the General in the face, as 



FIFTY YEARS. 475 

the wind waved about his brow and head the long locks white as 
snow, said firmly and aloud : "Strike, and let me sleep here with 
my father and my children ! Strike, I am the last of my race ! The 
Great Spirit gave me seven sons — three of them died at Emucfaw, 
two at Talladega, and two at Aletosee. General Jackson killed them 
all, and you call him my great father! When did a father wash his 
hands in his children's blood ? When did a father rob his children 
of their homes ? When did a father drive his children in anger into 
the wilderness, where they will find an enemy who claim it as the 
gift of the Great Spirit, and who will fight to retain it? Strike, and 
let me die — no time, no place like this ! The mother of my sons, 
their sisters, perished for food, when I with my sons was fighting for 
our homes. I am alone, and not afraid to die ! Strike : eighty winters 
are on my head — they are heavier than your sword ! They weigh me 
to the earth ! Strike, and let me go to my squaw, my sons, and my 
daughters, and let me forget my wrongs ! Strike, and let my grave 
be here, where all I have is in the ground ! Strike : I would sleep 
where I was born — all around me are the graves of my people, 
let mine be among them ; and when the Great Spirit shall come, let 
Him find us all together, here with our fathers of a thousand winters, 
who first built their wigwams here, and who first taught their children 
to be more cautious than the panther — more watchful than the 
turkey !" 

" I will not strike you," said the General. " No, I will not strike 
my foe, a prisoner ; but here is my hand in friendship." 

"No," said the chief; "you have put your sword in its pocket, 
put your hand in its pocket ; do not let it reach out to blind me, or 
to take my home. I am the white man's enemy; his friendship I fear 
more than his anger. It is more fatal to the red man. It takes away 
his home, and forces him living to go away and grieve for his 
country, and the graves of his fathers, and to starve in a strange land. 
In his anger he kills, and its mercy shuts his eyes and his heart away 
from the wrongs and the miseries of his people. I have lived and 
I will die the white man's enemy. I have done you all the harm in 
my power. If I could, I would do you more. My tongue is not 
forked like yours, my heart has no lies to make it speak to deceive. 
Strike, and let me go to the happy hunting-grounds where all my 
people are." 



476 THE MEMORIES OF 

He sat down upon the ground, and, in a low, monotonous, melan 
choly tone, chanted the death-song. 

" Who-ah-who-allee ! wait for me, I am coming.. Who-ah-who- 
allee ! prepare the feast, the great warrior's feast. Who-ah-who- 
allee ! let my boys and my braves come down to welcome me. 
Who-ah-who-allee ! those who went before me, tell them the old 
warrior is coming. Who-ah-who-allee ! the white man has come, he 
treads on their graves, and the graves of their fathers. Who-ah- 
who-allee ! the last of the Onchee is coming, prepare — his bow is 
broken, his arrows are all gone. Who-ah-who allee ! " Concluding 
his song with one shrill whoop, he dropped his head and lifted up 
his hands — then prone upon the earth he threw himself, kissed it, 
rose up, and seemed prepared for the fate he surely expected. 

Nehemathla spoke English fluently, and all his conversation was in 
that language. He was informed that there was no intention of tak- 
ing his life, but that he would be kept a close prisoner, until his peo- 
ple could be conquered and collected — when they would be sent to 
join their brethren, who had gone with the Cussetas and Cowetas and 
Broken Arrows, beyond the Great River of the West. Tamely and 
sullenly he submitted to his confinement, imtil the period approached, 
when all were collected and in detachments forwarded to their future 
homes. 

It was my fortune to be in New Orleans when the old chief and. 
his little band arrived at that place. It was winter, and the day of 
their debarkation was col(d and rainy. The steamer chartered to 
take them to Fort Smith, upon the Arkansas, from some cause did 
not arrive at the levee at the time appointed for their leaving, and 
they, with their women and children, were exposed upon the levee to 
all the inclemencies of rain and cold, through a protracted winter 
night. Many propositions were made to give them shelter, which 
were rejected. One warm-hearted, noble spirit, James D. Fresett, the 
proprietor of an extensive cotton-press, went in person to the aged 
chief, and implored him to take his people to shelter there. He 
declined, and when the importunity was again pressed upon him, 
impatient of persuasion, he turned abruptly to his tormentor and 
sternly said : 

" I am the enemy of the white man. I ask, and will accept, 
nothing at his hands. Me and my people are children of the woods. 
The Great Spirit gave them to us, and He gave us the power to 



FIFTY YEARS. 477 

endure the cold and the rain. The clouds above are His, and they 
are shelter and warmth enough for us. He will not deceive and rob 
us. The white man is faithless ; with two tongues he speaks : like the 
snake, he shows these before he bites. Never again shall the white 
man's house open for me, or the white man's roof shelter me. I 
have lived his enemy, and his enemy I will die." The grunt of 
approval came from all the tribe, while many rough and stalwart 
men stood in mute admiration of the pride, the spirit, and the deter- 
mination of this white-haired patriarch of a perishing people. The 
next day he went away to his new home, but only to die. About 
this time a delegation from both the Tuscahatchees or Hopothlayohola 
band and the Mcintosh band met by private arrangement, in New 
Orleans, to reconcile all previous difficulties between these parties. 
Hopothlayohola and Tuskega, or Jim's Boy, and Chillie Mcintosh 
and Hawkins, constituted the delegations. I was present at the City 
Hotel, and witnessed the meeting. It was in silence. Mcintosh and 
Hopothlayohola advanced with the right hand extended and met. 
The clasping hands was the signal for the others : they met, clasping 
hands, and unity was restored, the nations reconciled and reunited, 
and Hopothlayohola and his people invited to come in peace to their 
new homes. 

It was evidently a union of policy, as there could be no heart- 
union between Mcintosh and Hopothlayohola ; and though the latter 
placed his conduct upon the broad basis of national law and national 
justice, yet this was inflicted upon the parent of the other, who denied 
the law, or the power under the law, supposing it to exist, of the 
other to adjudge and to execute its sentence. In the meeting of 
these chiefs, and their apparent reconciliation, was to be seen a desire 
that the nation should reunite, and that there should be amity between 
the bands, or divided parties, for the national good, and for the good 
of all the parties or people. But there could never be between the 
two representative chiefs other than a political reconciliation. There 
was no attempt on the part of either to deceive the other. Both 
acted from the same high motives, while their features told the truth 
— personally they were enemies. The son held the hand of his 
father's executioner, red with the life-blood of him who gave him 
being — a father he revered, and whose memory he cherished. The 
filial and hereditary hatred was in his heart. The feeling was mutual. 
Both knew it, and the cold, passive eye, and relaxed, inexpressive 



478 THE MEMORIES OF 

features but bespoke the subdued, not the extinguished passion. 
Chillie Mcintosh is only one-fourth Indian in blood. Hopothlayo- 
hola is a full-blooded Indian. His features are coarse and striking. 
His high forehead and prominent brow indicate intellect, and his 
large compressed mouth and massive underjaw, terminating in a 
square, prominent chin, show great fixity of purpose, and resolution 
of will. Unquestionably he was the great man of his tribe. 

Tuskega, or Jim's Boy, was a man of herculean proportions. He 
was six feet eight inches in height, and in every way admirably pro- 
portioned. He was the putative son of a chief whose name he bore, 
and whose titles and power he inherited. But the old warrior-chief 
never acknowledged him as such. The old chief owned as a slave a 
very large mulatto man, named Jim, who was his confidant and chief 
adviser, and to him he ascribed the parentage of his successor, and 
always called him Jim's boy. His complexion, hair, and great size 
but too plainly indicated his parentage. He was not a man of much 
mark, except for his size, and would probably never have attained 
distinction but through hereditary right. 

In their new home these people do not increase. The efforts at 
civilization seem only to reach the mixed bloods, and these only in 
proportion to the white blood in their veins. The Indian is incapa- 
ble of the white man's civilization, as indeed all other inferior races 
are. He has fulfilled his destiny, and is passing away. No approxi- 
mation to the pursuits or the condition of the white man operates 
otherwise than as a means of his destruction. It seems his contact 
is death to every inferior race, when not servile and subjected to his 
caxe and control. 



FIFTY YEARS. 479 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

FUN, FACT, AND FANCY. 

EUGENIUS NeSBITT — WASHINGTON POE — YeLVERTON P. KiNG — PREPARING TO 

Receive the Court — Walton Tavern, in Lexington — Billy Springer, 
OF Sparta — Freeman Walker — An Augusta Lawyer — A Georgla. 
Major — Major Walker's Bed — Uncle Ned — Discharging a Hog on 
His Own Recognizance — Morning Admonition and Evening Counsel— 
A Mother's Request — Invocation — Conclusion. 

TO-DAY I parted from Eugenius Nesbitt and Washington Poe, 
two of only four or five of those who commenced life and the 
practice of law with me in the State of Georgia. We had just 
learned of the death of Y. P. King, of Greensboro, Georgia, who 
was only a few years our senior. The four of us were young together, 
and were friends, but I had been separated from them for more than 
forty years. Yet the ties of youthful attachment remained, and 
together we mourned the loss of our compeer and companion in 
youth. 

I was a member of the Legislature when Judge Nesbitt, by act of 
the Legislature, was admitted to the Bar, he having not attained his 
majority, and by a rule could not be admitted in the ordinary man- 
ner. Nesbitt, though so young, was known through the up-country 
of Georgia as a young man of more than ordinary promise. The 
same was the case with Poe. They had so deported themselves as 
to win the confidence and affection of the wise and the good. There 
were some in the Legislature who were lawyers, and who conscien- 
tiously believed that no one so young as Nesbitt was could be suffi- 
ciently matured mentally to properly discharge the duties of the 
profession. These men themselves were naturally dull, and igno- 
rantly supposed all minds, like their own, were weak in youth, and 
could only be strengthened and enlightened by time and cultivation. 
They honestly opposed the bill admitting the applicant. There was 
one though, who held no such ridiculous notions — himself an 
example to the contrary — but from some cause he strenuously 
opposed the bill. It was the celebrated Seaborne Jones, one of the 
very ablest lawyers the State ever produced. It seemed ever a 



480 THE MEMORIES OF 

delight to him to bear heavily upon young lawyers. It would be 
difficult to divine his motives. He was at the head of the Bar, unap- 
proached by competition, especially by any young maji. 

I was young and ardent, and felt offended at this opposition, and 
gave all the aid I could to the passage of the bill. Fortunately for 
our cause, there were many young lawyers in the Legislature, and 
these were a unit, and we succeeded in carrying the measure. From 
that day Nesbitt seemed nearer to me than any other of the Bar in our 
circuit. We have been separated over forty years, he remaining in 
his native State, while I have wandered away to the West. Still that 
warmth of heart toward him has never died out. And now, when 
both are on the grave's brink, we meet, not to renew, but to find the 
old flame burning still. King, Nesbitt, and myself were born in the 
same county, and our ancestors worshipped at the same church — 
Old Bethany — and to-day we recalled the fact as we mourned the 
death of our early friend and compeer at the Bar. 

Time has swept on. Our children are gray with years. One by 
one, all who were at the Bar with us are gone, save two or three, 
and to-morrow we shall be gone. But the oblivious past has not cur- 
tained from memory yet the incidents and the men of that past, and 
while I may I will bear testimony to these, and to the men who were 
their chief actors. Nesbitt justified in his subsequent life all that his 
friends and the public hoped from him. In every relation of life he 
has done his duty ably, honestly, and purely. As a member of the 
Legislature, of Congress, as a judge of the Supreme Court, as a 
worthy member of the Presbyterian Church, and, above all, as a 
father, husband, and citizen, he has been good, wise, and faithful. 
Is not his measure full? Who deserves it more? We were sad 
to-day. One said, "King is dead." "Yes," answered the other, 
and we were silent. Memory was busy. We could not talk. In his 
office, where yet he wears the harness of the law, surrounded by 
musty, well-thumbed books, and piles of papers with hard judicial 
faces, we sat and mused. Perhaps we thought of the past, when 
those to whom eternity is a reality were with us and joyous. At such 
times the mind turns quickly back to youth's joys, nor lingers along 
the vista of intervening time. All of that day will revive, but these 
memories sadden the heart, and we are fain to think, but not to talk. 
Perhaps we wondered what were the realizations of the dead. What 
are they ? Who knows, except the dead ? Do the dead know ? 



FIFTYYEARS. 48 1 

Unprofitable thought ! Faith and hope only buoy the heart, and 
time brings the end. Well, time has whitened our heads, but not 
indurated our hearts, and time is now as busy as when in the joyous- 
ness of youth we heeded not his flight, and to-morrow may bring us 
to the grave. Ah ! then we shall know the secret, and we will keep 
it, as all who have gone before. Oh, what a blessed hope is that 
which promises that we shall, forgetful of the cares and sorrows of 
time, meet those whom death has refined, and be happy as they in 
eternity ! But the doubt, and then the fear ! But why the fear ? 
We come into time without our knowledge or consent, fulfil a des- 
tiny, and without our knowledge or consent die out of time. This 
is the economy of man's life, and was given him by his Creator. 
Then why should he fear ? If it is wise for him to be born, to live, 
it is surely wise that he should die, since that is equally a part of his 
economy. Then why fear ? Reason is satisfied, but instinct fears. 

Yelverton P. King never removed from the county of his birth, 
nor abandoned his profession, remaining upon the soil of his nativity 
and among those with whom he had been reared, maintaining through 
life the character of an upright man. Many memories are connected 
with his name. When we were young at the Bar, there were as our 
associates very many who attained eminence as lawyers, and fame as 
politicians ; but these distinctions are not connected with the endear- 
ing attributes which make them so cherished in memory — the inci- 
dents of social intercourse, the favors, the kindnesses of good neigh- 
borhood, the sympathies of young life, the unity of sentiment, the 
sameness of hopes, little regarded at the moment; but oh ! how they 
were rooting in the heart, to bear, away in the coming time, these 
fruits of memory, in which is the most of happiness when age whitens 
the head, and the heart is mellowed with the sorrows of time. 

Though all were affectionate and social in their intercourse with 
each other, yet each had his favorites, because of greater congeni- 
ality in nature, more intense sympathies, and more continual inter- 
course. Little incidents were of frequent occurrence which drew 
these continually closer, until friendships ripened into confidences — 
some more special favorites of some, and some more general favor- 
ites of all. This latter was Y. P. King ; and yet this favoritism was 
never very demonstrative, but perhaps the stronger and more per- 
manent for this. Such, too, was Nesbitt : the older members of the 

41 2F 



482 THE MEMORIES OF 

profession loved him, and those of his own age were unenvious and 
esteemed him. 

Our circuit consisted of seven counties, and the ridings were spring 
and fall, occupying about two months each term. In each court- 
house town was a tavern or two. These houses of entertainment 
were not then dignified with the soaorous title of hotel. The pro- 
prietors were usually jolly good fellows, or some staid matronly lady, 
in black gown and blue cap, and they all looked forward with anx- 
ious delight to the coming of court week. Every preparation was 
rhade for the judge and lawyers. Beds were aired and the bugs 
hunted out, Saturday previous to the coming Monday was a busy 
day in setting all things to rights, and the scrubbing-broom was heard 
in consonance with calls to the servants to be busy and careful, as 
Sally and Nancy sprang to their work with a will. With garments 
tucked up to their knees, they splashed the water and suds over the 
floors, strangers to the cleansing element until then for months ago. 
A new supply of corn and fodder was arriving from the country ; 
stables and stable lots were undergoing a scraping eminently required 
for the comfort of decent beasts, who gave their lives in labor to 
exacting man. The room usually appropriated to the Bench and 
Bar was a great vagabond-hall, denominated the ball-room, and for 
this purpose appropriated once or twice a year. Along the bare walls 
of this mighty dormitory were arranged beds, each usually occupied 
by a couple of the limbs of the law, and sometimes appropriated to 
three. If there was not a spare apartment, a bed was provided here 
for the judge. And if there were no lawyers from Augusta, this one 
was distinguished by the greatest mountain of feathers in the house. 
Here assembled at night the rollicking boys of the Georgia Bar, who 
here indulged, without restraint, the convivialities for which they 
were so celebrated. Humor and wit, in anecdotes and repartee, 
beguiled the hours ; and the few old taverns time has spared, could 
they speak, might narrate more good things their walls have heard, 
than have ever found record in the Nodes AmbrosiatKe of the wits of 
Scrogie. 

There are but few now left who have enjoyed a night in one of 
these old tumble-down rooms, with A. S. Clayton, O. H. Prince, 
A. B. Longstreet, and John M. Dooly. Here and there one, old, 
tottering, and gray, lives to laugh at his memories of those chosen 
spirits of fun. Yes, that is the word — fun — for these ancients pos- 



FIFTY YEARS. 483 

sessed a fund of mirth-exciting humor, combined with a biting wit, 
which, in the peregrinations of a long life, I have met nowhere else. 
Were I to select one of these inns, it would be the old Walton 
Tavern, in the mean little hamlet of Livingston in Oglethorpe 
County, or the old house, kept long and indifferently, by that moun- 
tain of mortal obesity, Billy Springer, in Sparta, Hancock County. 
It was here, and when Springer presided over the fried meat and 
eggs of this venerable home for the weary and hungry, after a night 
of it, that all were huddled to bed like pigs in a sty. 

This bulky Boniface was polite to all, but especially to an Augusta 
lawyer. Freeman Walker, of that ilk, usually attended this court, 
and was the great man of the week. A man of splendid abilities and 
polished manners, dressed and deporting himself like a gentleman, 
as he was, he shone among the lesser lights which orbed about him, 
a star of the first magnitude. The choice seat, the choice bed, and 
choice bits at the table, were ever for Major Walker. Big Billy, 
with his four hundred and ten pounds of adipose flesh, was always 
behind Major Walker's chair. He was first served ; the choicest 
pieces of the pig were pointed out, cuts from the back and side 
bones and breast were hunted from the dish of fried chicken, a 
famous Georgia dish, for Major Walker. It was a great thing in 
those days in Georgia, to live in a little town of three thousand 
inhabitants, and wear store clothes. It was this and these which 
made a Georgia major. 

Judge Dooly, upon one occasion, when attempting to usurp the seat 
of honor, was unceremoniously informed by Big Billy that it was 
Major Walker's seat. 

Custom since has familiarized the retention of special seats for 
special persons, and now such a remark from a host astonishes no 
one. But in those days of unadulterated democracy, to assume a 
right to an unoccupied seat, startled every one. Dooly, amid the 
astonished gaze of the assembled guests, unmurmuringly retired to an 
unoccupied seat of more humble pretensions near the foot of the 
extended table. The occurrence was canvassed at night with full 
house in the democratic dormitory. When the jests incidental were 
hushed, and one after another had retired to bed. Judge Dooly, 
then on the Bench, went slowly to the only unappropriated bed, and 
undressing, folded down the bed-clothes. Suddenly, as if he had 
forgotten something, he slipped to the landing of the stairway and 



484 THE MEMORIES OF 

called anxiously for the landlord. " Come up, if you please," he said 
to the answering host. Springer commenced the ascent with slow 
and heavy tread ; at length, after a most exhausting effort, and 
breathing like a wounded bellows, he lifted his mighty burden of 
flesh into the room. 

" What is your will. Judge Dooly? " he asked, with a painful effort 
at speech. 

Dooly, standing in his shirt by the bedside and pointing to it, asked, 
with much apparent solicitude, if that "was Major Walker's bed." 

Springer felt the sarcasm keenly, and, amid the boisterous out- 
burst of laughter from every bed, turned and went down. 

A thousand anecdotes might be related of the peculiar wit, sarcasm, 
and drollery of this remarkable man. One more must suffice. When 
Newton County was first organized, it was made the duty of Dooly 
to hold the first court. There then lived and kept the only tavern in 
the new town of Covington, a man of huge proportions, named Ned 
Williams, usually called Uncle Ned — he, as well as Dooly, have long 
slept with their fathers. The location of the village and court-house 
had been of recent selection, and Uncle Ned's tavern was one of 
those peculiar buildings improvised for temporary purposes — a log 
cabin, designated, in some parts of Georgia at that time, as a two- 
storied house, with both stories on the ground ; in other words, a 
double-penned cabin with passage between. Uncle Ned had made 
ample provision for the Bench and Bar. One pen of his house was 
appropriated to their use. There was a bed in each corner, and there 
were nine lawyers, including the judge. The interstices between 
the cabin poles were open, but there was no window, and but one 
door, which had to be closed to avoid too close companionship 
with the dogs of the household. It was June, and Georgia June 
weather, sultry, warm, and still, especially at night. In the centre 
there stood a deal table of respectable dimensions, and this served the 
double purpose of dining-table and bed-place for one. Uncle Ned 
was polite and exceedingly solicitous to please. He had scoured the 
county for supplies ; it was too new for poultry or eggs, but acorns 
abounded, and pigs were plenty. They had never experienced want, 
and consequently were well-grown and fat. Uncle Ned had found 
and secured one which weighed some two hundred pounds. This 
he divided into halves longitudinally, and had barbecued the half in- 
tended for the use of the Bar and Bench. At dinner, on Monday, it 



FIFTY YEARS. 485 

was introduced upon a large wooden tray as the centre substantial 
dish for the dinner of the day. It \vas swimming in lard. There 
were side-dishes of potatoes and cold meats, appcllated in Georgia 
collards, with quantities of corn-bread, with two bowls of hash from 
the lungs and liver of the pig, all reeking with the fire and summer 
heat. A scanty meal was soon made, but the tray and contents 
remained untouched. 

The court continued three days, and was adjourned at noon of the 
fourth day, until the next term. Each day the tray and contents were 
punctual in their attendance. The depressed centre of the tray was 
a lake of molten lard, beneath which hid a majority of the pig. 
After dinner of the last day, all were ready to leave. When the 
meal was concluded, Dooly asked if all were done. "Landlord," 
said the Judge, "will you give us your attention?" Uncle Ned 
entered. "Your will, Judge," he asked. " I wish you, sir, to dis- 
charge this hog on his own recognizance. We do not want any 
bail for his appearance at the next term." The dinner concluded 
in a roar of laughter, in which Uncle Ned heartily joined. 

Only one of the nine who assisted to organize that county, now 
remains in life. There were four men there whose names are inscribed 
on the scroll of fame — whose names their fellow-citizens have hon- 
ored and perpetuated by giving them to counties : Cobb, Dawson, 
Colquitt, and Dougherty. Warner j^nd Pierman died young. I alone 
remain. The children of most of them are now gray with years, and 
have seen their grandchildren. The name of Dooly remains only 
a memory. 

The affections arising from youthful associations are more enduring 
than those which come of the same cause in riper years. They are more 
disinterested and sincere. They come with the spring of life, root 
deep into the heart, and cling with irradicable tenacity through life. 
We find in mature life dear friends, friends who will share the all 
they have with you, who will for you hazard even life, and you love 
them — but not as you love the boys who were at school with you, 
who ran with you wild through the woods, when you hunted the 
squirrel and trapped the quail. When fortuitous time forces your 
separation, and long intervening years blot the features, in their 
change, from your recognition, and chance throws you again with a 
loved companion of life's young morn — the thrill which stirs the 
41 * 



486 THE MEMORIES OF 

heart, when his name is announced, comes not for the friend found 
only when time has grown gray. 

Go and stand by the grave of one loved when a boy, the little laugh- 
ing girl you played with at hide-and-seek, through the garden shrubbery 
and the intricacies of the house and yard, one who was always gentle 
and kind, she for whom you carried the satchel and books when 
going to school, who came at noon and divided her blackberry-pie 
with you, and always gave you the best piece — and see how all these 
memories will come back ; and if the green grass upon the roof-top of 
her home for eternity does not bear, when you have gone away, a 
tear-drop to sparkle and exhale, a tribute to endearing memory, 
your heart is not worth the name. It is not given to us to love all 
with whom we may be familiar in early life. But every one will 
sincerely love some few of the companions of his school-days and 
early manhood. This is really the sugar of life, and the garrulity of 
age loves to recount these, for in his narrative he lives over and 
revives the attachments of boyhood. Woman may confess only 
to her own heart these memories — she must love only in secret. 
When the heart is fresh and brimming with affection, she may love 
with all the devotion of woman's heart ; but if her love meets no return 
its birthplace must be its grave. She may only tell, when she is old, 
of her successful and more fortunate love. Ah ! how many recount 
to their grandchildren their love, in budding youth, for their grand- 
father, who hide in the secret alcoves of the heart a more sacred 
memory of one who found his way there before dear old grand- 
father came. What sorrows these memories have sown along the way 
of life ! but they have winced not when the thorn has pricked ; and 
how she has folded to her bosom dear John, while imagination made 
him the more dear Willie, her first and foremost love! These 
endure in secret, and are the more sacred for this; they die only with 
the dead heart. Oh ! the grave, the secrets of the grave, are they 
hidden there for ages, or shall they survive as treasures for eternity ? 

I have been wandering among the graves of those loved best 
when the heart could love most, and dead memories sprouted anew, 
and with them a flash of the feelings which made them treasures of 
the heart. Yonder is the grave of Thomas W. Cobb ; near me is 
that of him most loved — William C. Dawson; and here, in this 
green grave, is Yelverton P. King ; and near him is the last resting- 
place of Adeline Harrison. Dear, sweet Adeline, you went, in 



FIFTY YEARS. 487 

truth, to heaven, ere yet the bud of life had opened into flower ! 
This is the county of my birth, and all of these, save Cobb, were 
natives, too, of the dear old land. 

To me, how near and dear were these ! Turn back, O Time, thy 
volume for fifty years, and let me read over anew the records of 
dead days, and make memories once more realities, as they were 
real then — else hurry on to the end, that I may know with these, 
or with these forget forever! I would not linger in the twilight of 
life, with all of time dimming out, and nothing of eternity dawning 
upon my vision. Let me sleep in the forgetfulness of the one, to 
awake to the fruition of the other ! 

I have been to the graves of my father and my mother. For more 
than a third of a century they have been sleeping here. I sat down 
in the moonlight, and placed my band upon the cold, heavy stone 
which rests above them ; they do not feel its pressure, but sleep well. 
They are but earth now — and why am I here? The moon and the 
stars are the same, and as sweetly bright, looking down upon this 
sacred spot, as they were when, a little child, I sat upon the knee of 
her who is nothing here, and listened to her telling me the names of 
these, as she would point to them, and ask me if I did not see them 
winking at me. Yet they are there, and the same now as then. But 
where is that gentle, sweet, affectionate mother ? Is she up among 
these gems of heaven? Is she yonder in the mighty Jupiter, looking 
down, and smiling at me ? Is she permitted, in her new being, to 
come at will, and breathe to my mind holy thoughts and holy feel- 
ings? Disembodied, is she, as God, j)ervadingall, and knowing all? 
Does she, with that devotion of heart which was so much hers in 
time, still love and protect me? Shall I, when purified by death, go 
to her? and shall this hope become a reality, and endure forever? 
Surely, this must be true ; or, why are these thoughts and hopes in 
the mind — why this affection sublimated still in the heart — why this 
link between the living, and the dead, if its fruition shall be denied 
in eternity ? Why this question, which implies a doubt of the good- 
ness of God? Sweet is the belief, sweeter the hope, that I shall see 
that smile of benignity, feel that gentle, loving caress, and forever, 
in unalloyed bliss, participate heaven with her. My mother — my 
mother! see you into my heart, here by your gravestone, to-night? 
Hast thou gone with me through my long pilgrimage of time? If 
I have kept thy counsels, and walked by their wisdom, hast thou ap- 



488 THE MEMORIES OF 

proved, my mother? My mother, all that is good and pure in me 
has come of thee ! If the allurements of vice have tempted, and 
frail nature has threatened to yield, the morning's admonition, the 
evening's counsel in our long walks, would strengthen me to for- 
bearance. These bright memories have lived and remained with 
me a guide and salvation ; and now they are the morning's memory, 
the evening's thought. As I have remembered and loved thee, I 
have been guided and governed by these. Surely there can be no 
loss to the child like the loss of the mother ! How those are to be 
pitied ! They go through life without the holy influences for good 
coming from a mother ; they stumble on, and learn here and there, 
as time progresses, the moral lessons only taught to childhood from 
a mother's lips: they stumble and fall for the want of these ; and, 
by experience, too often bitter experience, learn in youth what in 
childhood should be taught, which should grow up with them as a 
part of their being, to be the guides and comforts of life. And oh, 
how many never learn this ! 

Go, and converse with the wise and good, and they will tell you 
of their mothers' teachings ; go to the condemned criminal, whose 
crimes have cast him from society, and ask him why he is thus — and 
he will tell you he disregarded the teachings of his mother ; or, ' I 
had a wicked and vicious mother, who taught me evil instead of 
good ; ' or, * I had no mother, to plant in my childhood's heart the 
fear of God and the love of virtue. ' 

Here, to me, to-night, in grateful memory, comes the Sabbath 
morning in the garden at the home of my childhood, more than 
sixty years ago, when this dead mother here sleeping pointed to the 
drunken man passing on the highway, and, kindly looking up into 
my face, asked me to look at him, and, when he had passed out of 
sight, said: "My child, will you here, this beautiful morning of 
God's day, promise your mother that you will not drink one drop 
of ardent spirits until you are twenty-one years of age? You are so 
full of animal spirits, I fear, should you touch it at all, that you will 
come to drink to excess, and fill a drunkard's grave before you shall 
have passed half the days allotted to man's life." I see that plead- 
ing face, those soft brown eyes to-night, as they looked from where 
she was seated into my face ; I see the soft smile of satisfaction, as 
it came up from her heart and illumined her features, when I lifted 
up my hand and made the promise ! And, oh, shall I ever forget 



FIFTY YEARS. 489 

the thrill which gladdened ray heart when she rose up and kissed 
me, and murmured so gently, so tenderly, so full of hope and con- 
fidence: " I know you will keep it, my child." That promise is a 
holy memory ! It was kept with sacred fidelity. 

Angel of love and light — my mother — look down upon thy 
child here to-night, and for the last time by thy grave, with whitened 
head and tottering step, and see if I have ever departed from the 
way you taught me to go ! Soon I shall be with you. 

MY WORK. IS OVER, MY TASK IS DONE ! 



FINIS. 



